Endeavour: Amaterasu
by Rigil Kent
Summary: END-08, Sequel to Endeavour: Medea. Having discovered the Romulan links to the Xindi, Admiral Archer dispatches Endeavour to the Delphic Expanse to uncover the truth. Part 1 of 2.
1. Teaser

**STAR TREK: _Endeavour: "Amaterasu"_**

by Rigil Kent**  
>Genre: <strong>Action/Adventure, Drama  
><strong>Rated: <strong>PG-13 … language, violence, and adult situations.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Sequel to _Endeavour: Medea._ Having discovered the Romulan links to the Xindi, Admiral Archer dispatches_Endeavour _to the Delphic Expanse to uncover the truth. Part 1 of 2.

**Disclaimer: **Insert witty non sequitur here about me not owning a damned thing.

**Author's Note:** Behold! The fruits of my labors for Nanowrimo 2011.

Ever since Dan Drexler released the image for the NX-01 Refit, I've adjusted my mental image of _Endeavour _to match that. If you haven't seen it, then use Google.

This is the sequel to _Endeavour: Medea. _It'll be a little (a _lot_) difficult to follow without reading that first. Like my previous fics, I'm writing this as prose and using the basic screenplay format (Teaser + 5 acts).

Also, I haven't bothered with the Dramatis Personae because my website has a far superior Cast section.

* * *

><p><strong><span>TEASER<span>**

The sharp, acrid stench of burning flesh greeted him as he stepped off the shuttle.

Face concealed behind the mirrored visor of his powered battlesuit's helmet, D'deridex i-Mheissan tr'Irrhaimehn frowned darkly and narrowed his eyes. Behind him, his two Reman bodyguards tensed, adjusting their grips on the weapons they carried, but made no other offensive action and instead waited patiently for his signal. The last survivors of the Honor Pack that had once protected Admiral Valdore for much of his adult life, they had pledged their loyalties to D'deridex when he intervened and kept them from suffering the same self-inflicted fates as their brothers. He had been too late to save more than this pair, but these two had already proven their worth a dozen times over.

Smoke curled up from the ruined buildings that squatted underneath a sullen-looking star, climbing into the discolored sky in thin ribbons and blanketing the entire spaceport with a murky haze. Over a dozen grounded spacecraft were in view, most bearing angry carbon-scoring from recent void combat, but D'deridex barely glanced at them as he instead studied the structures still standing. All were damaged in some fashion – at least two looked to be on the verge of collapse – but the destruction seemed … random, almost as if taking shots at the buildings had been an afterthought by the raiders rather than being the actual intent. D'deridex shook his head in mild disgust: these aliens had no idea how to wage a war. Honestly, it was no wonder that the humans had defeated them with only a single starship.

"Master," one of the Remans rumbled abruptly, sliding forward quickly to place his body between D'deridex and an approaching trio of Xin'di now picking their way through the wreckage littered around the spaceport.

"Stand easy, _Mne_," D'deridex ordered softly. He decided against meeting the reptiles halfway – doing so would allow them to subconsciously identify him as an equal rather than a superior – and instead clasped his fingers together at the small of his back so he could project an appearance of military poise. The other Reman – _Rhi_ – shifted anxiously as the three reptiles approached, but it was such a subtle motion that D'deridex doubted they even noticed.

The lead Xin'di was wearing gold ringlets upon its ridiculous-looking uniform as opposed to the bronze that the other two wore, but D'deridex paid the absurd decorations little mind, instead focusing on the alien's features and posture. Almost immediately, he realized that this was to be yet another senseless waste of time. Once again, he was to hear excuses for why the Weapon was not ready, no doubt combined with further pleas for military assistance in the reptilian's war of conquest against their insectoid brethren.

D'deridex bit back the overwhelming urge to draw his disruptor and simply shoot the fool before it could even open its mouth. This would mark the tenth delay in as many weeks, and if Central Command was not distracted by the senseless infighting amongst the fleet admirals to determine who was to take Valdore's place, he suspected the ongoing failure would permanently mar his record. For the first time, D'deridex was thankful for Chulak's rank stupidity and the general corruption of the chain-of-command.

"There have been unfortunate delays in production," the Xin'di began without bothering to introduce itself or even acknowledge his rank. _Mne _took a quarter step forward, visibly bristling at the breach of protocol, and D'deridex did not bother calling the Reman to task for it. Instead, he slowly and deliberately crossed his arms over his chest.

It appeared that a message needed to be sent after all.

"Again," he said flatly. The modulator in his helmet further distorted his voice, even as it translated the words into the Xin'di's barbaric language. "I begin to question our decision to support you in this," he added darkly. "Perhaps the insectoids would be better equipped to facilitate completion."

"And perhaps you could provide _actual _support," the Xin'di retorted with a growling hiss. It gestured sharply in the direction of the damaged starport. "The insectoids raid this facility weekly," it continued, "and you do nothing but watch!" _Rhi _hissed softly, drawing the attention of the other two Xin'di, but D'deridex ignored all three.

And instead made a discreet hand gesture to _Mne_.

The Reman's reaction was instantaneous. Moving more quickly than a creature of its bulk should be capable of, _Mne _lunged forward, drawing the hyperdense dagger it kept sheathed at the small of its back and striking in a single, blurring motion. The lead Xin'di staggered back, its hand automatically coming up to ward off the attack even though_Mne _was once more assuming his ready stance, the blade vanishing so quickly that it almost seemed that it had never existed in the first place. With a loud clatter, the Xin'di's gold ringlets fell to the ferrocrete, bouncing and spinning away.

And a moment later, the Xin'di toppled as well, dark blood gushing from its ruined neck.

"Our patience is not infinite," D'deridex said into the shocked moment of silence. He stepped forward, noting with dark pleasure that the two Xin'di backed away from him automatically. "We want the Weapon," he said darkly, "and we tire of these delays."

"Three stellar months," the leftmost reptilian said. Its eyes were riveted on the corpse at its feet. "We need three stellar months to complete construction."

"And you shall have them," D'deridex answered. _You must be without mercy, _Valdore's voice whispered to him from months earlier, and he frowned though the Xin'di could not see his face. "Continue to delay, however," he added ominously, "and we shall be forced to seek … alternate allies." Without another word, he spun away, his thoughts racing.

Three months until the Weapon was functional. Three months until he would be able to shift the fortunes of the Rihannsu Empire once more. Three months until no one would dare to stand against him, not fools like Chulak, not the _deihu _of the senate, not even the _fvillha_ himself. Finally, he would be able to set right the errors and mistakes of those who had come before him and restore the Empire to the glory it deserved.

D'deridex smiled. He had much work to do.


	2. Act One

**ACT ONE**

_Captain's starlog, January 30th, 2158. This morning, we reached the Delphic Expanse … or rather, what _used _to be the Expanse. Orders from Starfleet Command are frustratingly simple: determine the nature of the connection between the Xindi and the Romulans and neutralize it without exacerbatin' the situation while keepin' as low a profile as possible._

…

_And, for my next trick, I'm going to break warp nine before lunch._

* * *

><p>She was hard at work when <em>Endeavour's<em> ambient noises changed, a clear signal that the NC-06 had slowed from warp speed.

Looking up from her research, Commander T'Pol raised an eyebrow in slight surprise. Better than perhaps anyone else aboard, she knew their flight plan. They were not scheduled to slow from warp speed for at least another thirty-seven point five hours and then, only for a period of sixty minutes to allow the warp coils to cool down from extended use. She tensed, halfway expecting an emergency summons to the bridge.

But no call came.

Fighting the urge to frown, she turned her attention back to the data flashing upon her screen. With little to do during the initial stage of the journey, she had been spending much of her "on-duty" time in the stellar dynamics lab, conducting experiments and studying the data they had acquired during their journey. When she had explained her latest theory regarding micro-singularities, Trip had been inexplicably amused and had granted her request for additional lab time without hesitation. It was gratifying to tune out the nature of their current mission, even if only for a short time.

Forty-three seconds after _Endeavour _slowed from warp, T'Pol abandoned her less than successful attempts to remain focused on the data in front of her, and turned to the communications panel. Until she knew the reason for their unscheduled stop, she doubted that she would be able to adequately concentrate. Curiosity, ever her bane, would only increase exponentially with each second that passed until she was too distracted to accomplish anything useful.

Clearly, this was all Trip's fault.

"T'Pol to bridge," she said once she pressed the transmit button.

"Bridge." Commander Eisler's almost instantaneous response was clipped and precise.

"Why have we slowed from warp speed?" she asked.

"Captain's orders, ma'am," the tactical officer replied, and T'Pol raised an eyebrow at that. She glanced at the chronometer and frowned slightly. There was no reason for them to stop. She did some rapid calculations, and her eyes widened in sudden realization.

"Please relay our current coordinates to stellar dynamics," she ordered quickly before turning toward the primary computer.

"Aye, ma'am," Eisler responded. Seconds later, new data appeared on her display and T'Pol drew in a sharp breath. She knew _exactly _where they were, and she silently chastised herself for becoming distracted.

"Thank you," she said as she turned toward the door. "T'Pol out."

As she exited the stellar dynamics lab, she tentatively reached out with her mind. Unsurprisingly, Trip's mental shields were up, and T'Pol frowned at how efficient her mate had become in concealing even his most errant thoughts. Not so long ago, it had been uncomfortable and, if she were truly honest with herself, positively annoying how frequently she would be deluged by random thoughts and images and sensations that were not her own. In the early days of their bonding, after Trip returned to _Enterprise _but before they found and lost their second child, T'Pol had very nearly lost hope that they could ever truly understand one another. He was too emotional, too chaotic, too … alien to be a true mate, but when they grieved together, her fear fell away and Trip wholeheartedly embraced the lessons she offered him. He rarely displayed how skilled he had become at blocking her and usually only did so when he wanted to surprise her with a gift of some sort. The date of her birth had already passed and the anniversary of their first neuropressure session – which Trip inexplicably considered an important date for reasons that totally defied her comprehension – was not for some months.

The twenty-three second wait for the turbolift to arrive seemed longer, but she took the time to arrange the most likely places Trip would be in sequential order. Since Commander Eisler had responded to her page to the bridge, her mate was clearly not there. And, although Trip had never said it aloud, she knew that he was rarely comfortable in his personal quarters alone; although she wasn't entirely positive, she suspected it was due to his residual hero worship for Admiral Archer and Trip's continued belief that he was unworthy of the rank bequeathed upon him, no matter the voluminous evidence to the contrary. Engineering was now Commander Hess' domain (much to Trip's rarely stated but always present dismay) and he disliked "breathing down her neck," so he ventured there only when invited or circumstances warranted his presence. That left the mess hall and the technically off-limits topside bridge.

Two enlisted crewmembers wearing the dark tan of operations stepped out of the lift the moment it arrived. Neither made eye contact, but, as they were newly assigned to _Endeavour_, such an event wasn't surprising. Disappointing, perhaps, but hardly unexpected. In T'Pol's experience, it took at least six months for new members of the crew to grow sufficiently comfortable with her to even look at her face.

Much to her annoyance, however, their inability to make eye contact did not prevent many of the males (and some of the females) from admiring her physical assets when they thought she was unaware of their looks. Sometimes, humans made less sense than Andorians.

With her face reflecting nothing of her thoughts, T'Pol entered the turbolift and depressed the button for A deck. Immediately, a red light flashed on the small panel, warning her that the destination had been rejected; placing her thumb onto the biometric scanner, she input the override code. Barely a second later, the computer chirped its acceptance of the new instructions and the door slid shut. Clasping her hands together behind her back, she relaxed her posture slightly as the lift began its journey from C Deck. She spent the brief travel time trying to assess the most effective way to approach Trip. An emotional appeal was simply not feasible; as a Vulcan, she had been trained since birth to suppress emotions and even with the trellium damage, she found it difficult to express herself as openly as he did. A logic-based appeal was equally unlikely to succeed; although Trip respected her adherence to Surak's teachings (and had begun to adopt many of them himself much to her surprised delight) he had a tendency to grow angry if she attempted to apply logic to the any of the emotional aspects of their relationship. With effort, she kept from frowning at the difficulties inherent in cross-species interactions.

The lift door opened with a hiss and she raised an eyebrow in mild surprise at the absence of her mate. Since he had issued the standing order that the A Deck bridge was off duty, it had become his preferred location to brood (though he would insist that he was doing no such thing) when the pressure of his position began affecting his judgment or his mood. Once again, T'Pol stretched out with her mind, this time succeeding in contacting him. A sensation that was not hers – hunger – momentarily washed across her perception and she redirected the turbolift.

Several minutes passed before T'Pol arrived at the dining facility. As she entered, Senior Chief Killick gave her a slight nod before discreetly gesturing toward the executive mess. She returned the nod and accepted the two mugs of tea that the chef silently offered, breathing in the agreeable smells of chamomile tea. At the doorway, she hesitated before pressing the annunciator with her elbow. With barely a sound, the door slid open.

Exactly as she expected (and feared if she were honest with herself), Trip was standing in front of the viewport, staring at the glittering white dwarf beyond. His hands were clasped together at the small of his back in a stance T'Pol recognized as how she often stood, and he seemed utterly unaware of the image he presented. It was yet another minor example of psychic bleed-over; in situations where he was extremely tired or highly emotional or deeply distracted, Trip often unconsciously adopted certain of her mannerisms or habits, much to his embarrassment. Even though she had superior mental gifts, T'Pol had discovered she often experienced a similar adoption of his traits at times when her self-control waned.

Trip tensed slightly at her approach, but offered no greeting nor even glanced in her direction when she placed the two mugs on the table behind him. Instead, his attention remained riveted on the distant star. T'Pol stood at his side for a long moment, wishing that she knew what to say. Vulcans were not loquacious by nature, and she had never mastered the art of "small talk," despite his best efforts. Even in their most difficult times together, it had always been Trip who had engaged her, not the reverse. Mentally, she amended that, recalling their painfully difficult interactions following her return to _Enterprise _after her short-lived and ultimately unnecessary marriage to Koss; then, like now, Trip had withdrawn into himself.

Finally, she reached out and placed her hand upon his. He exhaled softly, relaxing fractionally and allowing her to lace her fingers with his as their joined hands fell to his side. It was a minor thing, but relieved her immeasurably.

"I'm sorry," he said unexpectedly, eyes still locked on the glittering star. Despite herself, she raised an eyebrow at his words.

"Why are you apologizing?" T'Pol asked quizzically. In times like this, he continued to baffle her, despite their telepathic connection. She wondered if she would ever fully understand him.

"For shutting you out," Trip replied. She winced at the sudden wave of angry frustration that rolled off of him, and his expression tightened further as he tried to rein in his rampant emotions.

"You have nothing to apologize for, Trip," she stated emphatically. "_Nothing._" He forced a smile but wasn't able to maintain it for long. Another long moment passed in silence as they stared at the distant white dwarf. She knew exactly what was on his mind and, had she not allowed herself to become distracted by promising results with her experiments, would have been more prepared for it.

"I've never been able to entirely forgive them," Trip whispered, an anguished expression slowly appearing on his face. "I know that they didn't have a choice, and that Phlox never expected him to be sentient, but..." He trailed off, closing his eyes for a moment. "I never wanted anyone to die for me, T'Pol," her mate said. "Never." His hold on her hand tightened and she shuffled closer to him, hoping that her proximity would alleviate some of his distress.

"Have you spoken to Phlox?" T'Pol asked after a moment of consideration, and Tucker frowned darkly as he shook his head.

"Not a good idea," he replied. "Especially right now." T'Pol narrowed her eyes as she attempted to decipher the jumbled emotions that swirled through their cerebral linkage. "How do you tell a friend that you can't forgive them for saving your life?" Trip asked softly, his tone making it clear that it was a rhetorical question.

"_Spunau bolayalar t'Wehku bolayalar t'Zamu il t'Veh_," she reminded him, and he sighed heavily.

"I know." Another sigh emerged from him. Abruptly, he gave her a sidelong glance and T'Pol could almost taste the hesitation in his mind. "Did you … did you and he … ?"

"Have sexual relations?" she finished for him. "No." Trip grimaced and looked away, his self-disgust at even verbalizing the question swirling through the bond. "It was never an option, Trip," T'Pol continued, suddenly recognizing one of the sources of his angst. They had discussed Sim's attraction to her only once and it had led to their first exploration an eternity ago. "He may have looked like you," she said, "and possessed some of your memories, but he _was not _you." She tightened her hold on his hand, forcing him to look at her. "I can show you my memories of the event, if you wish," T'Pol began, but Trip shook his head.

"No," he said, "I trust you." He exhaled again and his shoulders slumped, as if he were suddenly exhausted. "Is it wrong," he asked softly, "that I wish there was more to remember him by?" T'Pol shifted awkwardly, unsure how to respond. The existence of the symbiont – Sim, she reminded herself – had been classified by Starfleet Command like so much of the Expanse mission. Logically, she understood the reasoning: to Earth, Jonathan Archer and the crew of _Enterprise _were heroes who had saved the birthplace of humanity and tarnishing their reputation by revealing some of the … less savory decisions made during that mission would negatively impair human morale. It did not matter that Admiral Archer was still haunted by the decisions he made here and likely would be for the rest of his life, or that Trip sometimes woke up screaming from nightmares wrought by the never fully healed transplant material in his brain, or that T'Pol herself struggled daily to cope with the self-inflicted damage that impaired her self-control. For the good of the many, the few had to suffer in silence.

"Remind me to put _The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance_ on the docket for movie night," Trip murmured. He gave her a sidelong glance and T'Pol realized he had caught the direction of her thoughts. "When the legend becomes fact," he said, clearly quoting something, "print the legend."

"I shall look forward to it," she replied truthfully. Trip gave her a tight smile – it was a pale shadow of the one he usually gave her – before reaching for the communications panel and depressing the transmit button.

"Tucker to bridge." Commander Eisler responded immediately.

"Bridge."'

"Resume course, Rick. Tucker out."

"You have not eaten," T'Pol accused the moment Trip released the button. He flinched before sighing heavily and shaking his head.

"Guilty," he admitted and gestured toward the small dining table. It was covered with PADDs and printed technical schematics. "I've been lookin' over the blueprints the admiral sent with Hoshi. Haven't had time to eat today." T'Pol quirked an eyebrow as she picked up one of the data devices and studied it with growing fascination. The proposed starship class design seemed a logical next step from the _Enterprise_-class, complete with the engineering hull that had been incorporated upon _Endeavour _and utilized extensively on the _Daedalus_-class. From just a preliminary examination, however, T'Pol noticed a number of unexpected discrepancies.

"This is Vulcan technology," she remarked as she paged through the data. "And Andorian."

"They worked in some Tellarite hull composites too," Trip added, "and I think they've incorporated some Vissian tech for the sensor arrays." He sipped his tea, made a face, and set it aside. "The nacelles are the only thing of purely human design," he remarked with a hint of pride in his voice, although his expression remained troubled. Even without the bond, T'Pol could tell that something was worrying her mate and she gave him a questioning look. With a sigh, he handed her one of the PADDs. "Notice anything odd about that engine design?" T'Pol was silent as she glanced over the data.

"It is generating a substantial amount of energy," she said after a moment.

"Six thousand terajoules more than _Endeavour _and _Enterprise _combined is just 'substantial' to you?" Trip retorted wryly. He shook his head. "Nothing we've got in the Fleet needs that much juice." Trip collapsed in his chair and leaned back. "This is a warship, pure and simple."

"And this troubles you?" T'Pol asked. She took her seat and began organizing the PADDs into a neat stack alongside the blueprints for the revised engineering hull intended for the _Shenzhou _and _Gagarin, _now being constructed at Jupiter Station; both were ostensibly _Endeavour-_class, but would look slightly different once deployed. "To win a war," she continued carefully, suppressing her own trepidation, "one needs warships."

"Which makes me wonder," Trip asked softly, "what will Starfleet look like after this is over?" He leaned back and closed his eyes, exhaustion stamped upon his face. T'Pol frowned tightly and made a mental note to speak with Phlox later. The doctor had discovered no explanation for Trip's recent tendency to sleepwalk other than exhaustion, and had encouraged her to simply make sure that her mate adhered to a more strict sleep discipline. Although Phlox insisted that the captain was in no real danger as long as she kept an eye on him while he was in the somnolent state, T'Pol silently worried that it was an unexpected side-effect of the mating bond and Trip's adoption of many Vulcan attributes. According to all of the literature Phlox had made available to her regarding human psychological health, it was unhealthy for Trip to internalize so much of his emotional distress. Humans needed to vent their emotions, not suppress them, but T'Pol had no idea how to encourage such a thing and knew it would be positively hypocritical on her part to even suggest it. She sighed softly.

Nothing was ever easy for them.

=/\=

Sometimes, it was easy to forget just how young her fellow officers were.

Most of the time, Hoshi was too busy to really give it much thought. In between her duties as senior operations officer – the OPSO, according to Commander Eisler, though she still didn't quite understand his need to turn everything into an acronym; sometimes, talking to the tactical officer who spoke in a language all his own taxed even her linguistic capabilities – she was also still trying to get up to speed with Lieutenant Devereux's department as well as reprogramming the universal translator with the latest iteration of her proto-Romulan database and spending her nonexistent free time coordinating with Phlox and T'Pol over the study material T'Sai had provided her. Still, when she did have to interact with the junior officers, Hoshi had long since realized that the kids – and Lord, how she hatedthat she thought of the ensigns and junior lieutenants in such terms – were focused, intelligent and more professional than she'd ever been at that rank. With a Vulcan first officer, a third-in-command like the scary as hell Eisler, and the ever-present threat of death just lurking around the corner, such dedication was probably to be expected, even though it never ceased to make Hoshi a little sad and miss Travis that much more. In times like this, he would have said with a bright grin, the crew needed something to laugh about more than ever.

Trip had also changed since _Enterprise _– gone were his ready grins and jokes, only to be replaced by calculating looks that always made Hoshi wonder if Tucker was having to consider scenarios where he might be forced to sacrifice her for the good of the ship. Far worse, though, was that, for a Denobulan, even Phlox was positively grim these days, with his ebullient personality dimmed to the point he rarely smiled.

Today, however, was different.

She had noticed the shift in the atmosphere shortly after dinner, while she was taking the opportunity to simply relax and enjoy her conversation with Phlox about her lack of actual progress with T'Sai's lessons – she and T'Pol were continuing to have difficulty determining a base line for the so-called telepathic ability Hoshi _might_ be capable of; so far, the only difference she'd noticed was a constant headache and the occasional flash of déjà vu, not to mention the frustrating sense that she was wasting everyone's time with this fool's errand – when a pair of excited young officers drew her attention. At this distance, she could not quite make out what Lieutenants Ricker and Zhao were talking about, but her study of them caused Phlox to chuckle as he leaned back in his seat.

"Ah," he remarked wryly. "It must be Wednesday." Hoshi gave him a look.

"Wednesday?" she repeated. The Denobulan simply smiled in response and immediately went back to the meatloaf he was picking at. Hoshi shuddered at the very thought of tasting the horrible mess – with Chief Killick bedridden thanks to an especially virulent case of the flu, primary cooking duties fell to his number two, Petty Officer Williamson, who honestly wasn't capable of boiling water without burning it. Ever adaptable, several of the Roughnecks had gone so far as to conduct a raid on the ship's stores and were _voluntarily_ eating the tasteless protein packs that were supposed to only be used in emergencies. So far, the only reason Williamson hadn't been lynched already was that he was the brains behind the illicit still constructed in hydroponics and was a veritable genius when it came to the brewing of alcohol. As for the still, it was an open secret aboard the ship, just like the one that had been on _Enterprise _… although now that Hoshi thought about it, she wasn't so sure that T'Pol knew. How _would_ a Vulcan react to something like that? It gave her something to chew on while Phlox studied his meal as if he were about to conduct surgery. The hiss of the mess deck door opening long moments later finally snapped Hoshi out of her distracted fugue and she glanced up at the newly arriving figure.

"It's fight night!" Lieutenant Rostova exclaimed with a bright smile and an excited voice a touch louder than necessary as she entered the mess deck in the instant before the doctor could respond. Almost dancing across the floor, she joined her two cohorts, and all three dissolved into giggles that would not have been out of place in a college dorm or a high school locker. It took Hoshi a long second but she finally realized that all three were wearing workout clothes. She frowned – in her experience, visits to the gym weren't something to be happy about, not with a fitness nut like Commander Eisler at least partially in charge of physical training.

"I think," Phlox said, a mischievous grin on his face, when Hoshi turned back to him with a question in her eyes, "you should join them, my dear. It will be most illuminating." He excused himself a moment later and cornered Doctor Reyes near the coffee dispenser; Hoshi couldn't make out what they were discussing, but she was pleased to see that Phlox was smiling again.

Eventually, her curiosity won out, and Hoshi made a quick trip to her cabin to change into her sweats before retracing her steps to the mess deck where she discreetly trailed the three lieutenants to Gymnasium Three. To her immediate surprise, there was already a fairly large crowd of junior officers and enlisted personnel gathered within, all of whom were ostensibly exercising even though Hoshi could tell that their attention was almost entirely focused upon the two figures sparring on one of the tumbling mats. She unsuccessfully fought back a smile as the three lieutenants she'd accompanied nearly quivered with excitement and rushed to get what were the equivalent of ringside seats. Suddenly, Lieutenant Rostova's comment about 'fight night' made a little more sense.

Dressed in the same sorts of exercise gear they'd been wearing since _Enterprise _originally launched so long ago, Trip and T'Pol circled each other, muscles tensed and eyes narrowed. Hoshi recognized the stances they were using instantly and realized that the Vulcan commander had finally convinced Tucker to learn _Suus mahna._ Many had been the overheard arguments about the subject aboard _Enterprise _back before Elysium, and Hoshi recalled laughing with Travis at how frustrated (in her own way) the Vulcan usually sounded when Trip insisted that he was an engineer who didn't need to know how to fight. The harder T'Pol pushed, the more intransigent Trip became, _especially _when Malcolm had joined the argument on the Vulcan's side.

As the two practiced defensive throws reminiscent of judo, Hoshi found herself noticing differences in Trip that his duty uniform normally hid. He had always been in good shape before, but the definition to his musculature was far more pronounced than she ever recalled it being. Sweat pasted his shirt to his chest, outlining a physique that was, even to someone who thought of him as an older brother, well worth a second (or third) look. By her calculations, Trip was only a few years shy of forty but looked to be in better physical shape than pretty much every twenty year old she knew. There appeared to be absolutely no hint of fat on his body, and with the poor diet she recalled him living on – stress, coffee, too much red meat and sugary sweets – that seemed to be a disconnect. If she didn't know better, she could easily mistake him for a fitness instructor or a model for one of those ridiculously expensive gyms back home rather than the ship's commander she knew him to be.

T'Pol also appeared to be in spectacular physical shape, with rock-hard abs that Hoshi would have killed for – Sato _still _hadn't managed to completely shed the extra weight she'd picked up during pregnancy – and a butt so toned it looked as if it had been airbrushed. A light sheen of sweat coated the Vulcan's exposed skin, though it was impossible to tell if it was hers or from Trip. Combined with the soft grunts of exertion and the constant physical contact, the martial display was surprisingly … erotic, though she knew the two well enough to recognize that it was not intentionally so. T'Pol probably didn't even realize how sexy they looked while throwing each other around on the tumbling mat, and Trip was obviously too focused on preventing his mate from knocking him around to give it much thought.

Their audience certainly noticed though.

To her utter surprise, Hoshi realized she was able to vaguely sense something … different about the two, an intangible connection that she could almost taste but couldn't quite touch or see. It made them stand out slightly, as if she was looking at a video of the gym and they were recorded in a higher resolution than everyone else. Everything about the two was … overwhelming – the red of Tucker's shirt was so bright it burned her eyes, but deep blue of T'Pol's exercise clothes soothed away the hurt, as if it was water – and Hoshi tore her eyes away from the visual spectacle everyone else in the gym was staring at. Her head pounded in time with her pulse, and she silently counted backward from ten. In Klingon.

_"Your elbow is crooked," _she heard T'Pol declare calmly in Vulcan.

_"It was not,"_ Trip replied, only a hint of his native accent coloring T'Pol's language. He smiled then, and the colors between them intensified tenfold, nearly blotting everything else out. A low rumble, almost like thunder, seemed to envelop the two, and it took Sato an eternity – or perhaps only a few seconds, she couldn't tell – to realize that it was actually a pair of sounds, one pounding faster than the other, but both oddly synchronized. Each time they looked at one another, the pitch of the soundless thunder spiked dramatically, and when they touched? Hoshi was certain that her ears were about to begin bleeding. She inhaled sharply and squeezed her left hand into a tight fist, focusing on the sensations from her nails digging into her palm.

And slowly, ever so slowly, she regained her equilibrium.

"Ah, Lieutenant Rostova," Trip said abruptly, his voice clear and pitched to carry across the gym, "you're just in time." All eyes, including Hoshi's, darted to the startled-looking damage control officer.

"Sir?" she squeaked, before just as quickly clearing her throat in embarrassment. "Just in time for what, sir?" Rostova asked.

_"Suus mahna,"_ T'Pol said sharply. "As you and several of your junior officers have a clear interest in this defensive technique," the Vulcan continued, her gaze encompassing Lieutenants Ricker and Zhao, both of whom were trying to back away from Rostova, "the captain and I have decided that a training regimen would not go amiss."

"Oh." Rostova visibly grimaced. "That's … great," she finally said.

"We'll need one more person," Trip interjected. His eyes zeroed in on Hoshi and he started to smirk. At exactly that moment, the acting chief of the boat stepped forward, weaving his way through the crowd with ease. Tall and well-built, Lee Luckabaugh was a good-looking specimen of humanity and he knew it. Hoshi had overheard dozens of discreet conversations between the junior officers and enlisted women aboard _Endeavour _about Luckabaugh and in every instance, they all agreed he would be an enthusiastic lover.

And from the way Lieutenant Rostova looked at him, she knew that from personal experience.

"I'd like to give it a go, sir," Luckabaugh announced. Tucker glanced once at T'Pol, then beckoned for the acting-COB to join them.

Nearly an hour later, the three lieutenants and one senior chief petty officer were finally cut loose, and it didn't escape Hoshi's notice that Luckabaugh and Rostova left together. At a glance, she could tell that Trip had noticed as well, but she knew that he would simply continue to pretend to be oblivious. As long as they didn't allow it to interfere with their jobs, Tucker didn't care what they did in their off-hours. And besides, Hoshi reflected as the captain threw his spare towel to T'Pol, it wasn't like Trip could say anything that wouldn't make him a hypocrite.

"Dodged that bullet, darlin'," he threw in Hoshi's direction as he headed toward the door. From the treadmill where she was jogging, she flashed him a grin but kept her current pace. It felt good to loosen up her muscles again, to get her heart pumping and feel the slow burn in her legs. Ever since her reassignment to Earth, she'd been unable to stick to a normal exercise routine, in between all of the stupid briefings and little Malcolm conspiring to swallow up her time. As much as she hated being away from her son, she had to admit, if only to herself, that it was nice to have a few hours of solitude.

She spent another thirty minutes on the treadmill before finally winding down, knowing that there was already a line for the machine's use. Before they departed human space, Commander Eisler had stripped the three _Daedalus_-classes originally assigned to the _Endeavour _strike group of their security detachments for this mission, effectively tripling the size of the unit already aboard. Most were former MACOs and as a result were accustomed to sleeping in tight quarters, but it was disconcerting knowing that the bridge officers were probably the only ones not sharing quarters with two or even three people.

Once back in her cabin, Hoshi used up her entire day's allotment of hot water in the shower, knowing that she would pay in the morning for the treadmill. Already, she could feel the after-effects of the first long run she'd had in … goodness, was it really that long? She was just about to crawl into bed when she noticing the flashing light on her system terminal, indicating a new message. It was probably something from Eisler – her department status reports were overdue and the commander was almost as much of a stickler about punctuality as T'Pol – but there was also the strong possibility that Anna had made good on her threat to officially pass the upgrade work for the translation circuits to Hoshi's department. In either event, it probably wasn't something she wanted to see. Her sense of duty won out, so, with a heavy sigh, she took a seat in front of her terminal and powered it up.

And, exactly as she expected, it wasn't good news.

=/\=

The news was clearly bad.

"You may get dressed," Phlox told him, but from the doctor's body language, Rick Eisler could tell that he was not going to like what he was about to hear. He fought down a sigh as he reached for his uniform and silently began to don it. _You knew it was unlikely that Phlox could craft a cure, _he told himself bitterly, desperately trying to ignore the less than subtle tremor running up his left arm and the hollow ache in his stomach. Although he was as far from being an expert as one could get, Rick knew that curing a pre-existing genetic defect wasn't something easily done, even with modern technology.

A mutated offshoot of the now mostly eradicated Huntington's Disease, Krupitzer's hadn't appeared until the later years of the Eugenics Wars, but the relatively low number of those afflicted by the neurodegenerative genetic disorder had caused it to fall fairly low on the list of priorities during the early days of humanity's recovery – when thousands were dying each day of hunger or radiation sickness, less than a quarter of one percent of the surviving population dying of an unknown disease hadn't seemed especially important. Later, when Earth had clawed its way out of the dark days, the disorder remained a minor issue thanks to the small number of afflicted, a footnote in medical annals, or the usual short-lived research project for new doctors who, more often than not, abandoned it for more esoteric and glamorous diseases.

"How long do I have?" Rick asked the moment he rejoined the doctor. Phlox's face crumpled for a moment and Eisler snorted in dark humor. "Not long, I see."

"There are several promising avenues of research I am still examining," Phlox said quickly. He gestured toward the bio-monitor where a colorful representation of Rick's DNA was displayed. At Eisler's half frown, the doctor immediately launched into an in-depth explanation of his theories, ideas for treatment regimens, and even a thorough explanation of the nature of the reason he was having trouble combating the disorder, all wrapped in medical jargon that likely made sense only to a physician. Rick tuned the doctor out – he'd heard it all before – and focused on a single fact: the hoped for miracle cure still didn't exist.

He was still dying.

If he were honest with himself, Rick would have to admit that he actually wasn't surprised. He'd had thirty plus years to grow accustomed to the notion that he would never see forty, and this fatalistic attitude had driven many of his life choices. Choosing a profession that frequently put him in life threatening danger had been a natural decision and one he'd never regretted.

"Thank you, Doctor," he said abruptly, the sharp finality of his words cutting into Phlox's suggestion regarding a radical gene therapy that had less than a ten percent chance of success. "I know you have done everything that you could," Eisler added.

"And it still isn't enough," Phlox replied softly. He turned his eyes to the wall display. "I am _so _close," he added. "A year, maybe two, and I will have a cure."

"But I don't have a year," Rick guessed. He didn't need to see the doctor's slight head shake to know that to be the case, not with the sharp decline he'd noticed over the last two months. If his wild mood swings weren't bad enough, the degradation of his physical skills was positively damning. His hands shook at the most inopportune moments, his balance was frequently off, and recently, muscle spasms in his legs made even walking difficult. So far, his cognitive functions remained unimpaired, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before he started making mistakes. "How long?" he asked flatly. Phlox heaved a heavy sigh.

"I cannot tell," the doctor said. "Three to six months," he added after a moment of consideration. "I wish I had better news to tell you…"

"As do I," Eisler admitted. "Death doesn't frighten me," he added. His thoughts almost instantly turned in the direction of the Engineering deck and the addictive personality that claimed it as her domain, but Rick grimaced and pushed the momentary daydream away. _Face reality as it is,_ his mother had told him before the disease robbed her of her mind, _not as you wish it to be._

"As chief medical officer," Phlox said with another slight frown, "I am obligated to inform the captain." Rick nodded – he'd expected that – but the doctor continued, his eyes still locked on the wall monitor. "But not until I am positive you are incapable of your duties." The smile he offered Rick was a pale shadow of the one that Eisler recalled seeing when he first joined the crew. "This means I will need to conduct weekly checkups," Phlox said firmly, "and I expect you to be completely honest about your condition at all times."

"I can do that," Rick said. He gave the doctor a thankful nod and half-smile before turning away. Three steps from the door, he paused. "Phlox?" he called out. The doctor glanced in his direction. "Promise me you will eradicate this disease."

"You have my word," the Denobulan promised, his eyes glittering. "No one else will die of this obscenity." Rick nodded.

It would have to be enough.

Beyond Sickbay, the corridors were thick with enlisted personnel, a sizeable portion still wearing the service patches from the _Daedalus_-class that they had been assigned to before Rick effectively shanghaied them to augment _Endeavour's _numbers. Integrating them into the chain-of-command had turned out to be a logistics nightmare, especially when Commander T'Pol delegated the task to him. If she had been human, Eisler suspected that the task would have been retaliation for forcing her to deal with billeting assignments … although given what he knew about her personality, he had to admit, it _still _might be payback…

"Commander!" An all-too familiar voice called out to him and Rick barely fought back a disgusted sigh as he slowly turned to face the security detachment commander. As usual, Ensign Stiles' uniform was immaculate and he looked every centimeter an effective Starfleet officer.

And that, perhaps, was the principal reason that Rick had trouble with him.

Unlike most of the security personnel aboard _Endeavour_, Stiles had never been a MACO and was, in fact, the latest scion of an honored Starfleet pedigree – his late uncle, Jacob, had been Eisler's immediate predecessor as tactical officer and later ably commanded the UES _Challenger _until he'd been killed along with the rest of the crew thanks to an effective Romulan ambush. For his part, Ensign Stiles was technically proficient in most areas, but had a frustrating tendency to stop listening when he believed that his decision was the right one. Eisler knew for a fact that the entire security detachment loathed the ensign, not because he demanded too much of them or rode them hard during training, but simply because he was the worst kind of officer one could imagine.

"Ensign," Rick greeted coolly, hoping that his tone would convey his disinterest in conversing with the junior officer. Naturally, Stiles was oblivious.

"Sir, I wanted to discuss my duty assignment," the ensign began. Rick narrowed his eyes and bit back an instinctive response.

"What about it?" he asked instead.

"I feel as though my abilities are being wasted as security detachment commander, sir," Stiles said without a hint of shame. Eisler blinked in surprise, but the ensign continued. "I would like to request reassignment to the Armoury and resume my position as ORDO, sir," he said.

"Request denied," Rick said flatly. His temper flared and he took a step closer to the … _boy_ in front of him. "Do you know why I made Lieutenant Kimura the Ordinance Officer?" he demanded sharply, his voice low and hard. Around them, several of the enlisted personnel were making poor efforts to hide the fact that they were eavesdropping.

"Because he was a MACO," Stiles said through clenched teeth.

"Wrong." Rick shook his head in disgust. At the best of times, he had no patience for fools, but knowing that he would be dead in six months stripped away his already limited reservoir of tolerance for Stiles. "In addition to outranking you," Eisler said harshly, "Lieutenant Kimura has specialized ordinance training that you _do not _possess." He took another step forward and was darkly amused when Stiles backpedaled. "In short," Rick snapped, "the lieutenant is the best man for the job. Period."

"But, sir-"

"Stand at attention when you are addressing a superior officer, _Ensign,_" Rick growled. Stiles obeyed immediately, straightening his back so abruptly that Eisler could almost hear the vertebrae creaking. "I made you the Roughnecks' commander because Commander Hess advised me that she had no need for a sanitation disposal officer," he snapped, ignoring both the dark flush on the ensign's face and the sudden silence that had descended upon the corridor. The enlisted personnel were no longer trying to hide the fact that they were watching, but Rick realized he couldn't care less. Stiles desperately needed someone to slap some sense into him or people were going to die. "Fernandez and Mitchell are the _real _leaders of the Roughnecks so you can't do any real damage there." Stiles' eyes widened even further. "So until I say otherwise," Eisler added, "you have exactly _one _job and one job only: to keep your damned mouth shut and listen to what they tell you to do." He locked eyes with the ensign – Stiles was quivering with anger and embarrassment. _Good. Keep this moment in mind, boy._

"Yes, sir," Stiles said, the muscles in his jaw jumping and quivering.

_"_Speak to your NCOs," Rick said. "_Learn _from them. Prove to them that you are worth following." He leaned closer. "When I see that you've earned _their _respect, you'll have earned mine." It was a lie – Eisler sincerely doubted he would ever see this boy as more than a jumped up example of Starfleet nepotism; any officer who whined to their commander about their job like a teenager in front of enlisted personnel was, in his opinion, someone unworthy of the uniform. He wheeled away, fighting to hide the effort it took to stay steady on his feet. "Dismissed."

He nearly ran into Anna as he rounded the corner. She was leaning against the bulkhead, loitering just out of sight but well within hearing range.

"Damn, Rick," she muttered as she pushed herself out of the leaning position. "You really let him have it." Eisler grunted, but didn't reply further. Instead, he resumed his stride toward the nearest turbolift and mentally rolled his eyes when Anna fell into step beside him. She waited until they were alone in the lift. "Was that entirely necessary?" she asked.

"Probably not," Rick muttered. He shook his head. "That damned fool is going to get good soldiers killed." His expression darkened. "That is," he added, "if he doesn't experience a combat accident of his own." Anna's eyes widened, once more reminding him how different their respective careers had been.

"Right," she said hesitantly before abruptly reaching for the emergency stop button. "Is everything okay with you?" she asked. "Ripping Stiles a new one in front of the crew really isn't like you."

"It has been a bad day." As if on cue, the muscles in his legs began to spasm and he automatically grimaced.

"Oh." Anna's voice was small as comprehension instantly flashed across her face and, for the span of a long heartbeat, they simply stared at one another. She looked lost, confused, frightened … and Rick could only wonder what she saw when she stared at him. _Death doesn't frighten me, _he had told Phlox, but truthfully? He was terrified. For the first time in his life, he had everything to live for thanks to this damned, frustrating, irritating woman. If he believed in a higher power, Eisler suspected that he would be praying for a miracle of some sort.

But he'd lost the last vestiges of faith decades ago.

"Rick," Anna began. She wet her lips and looked down. Eisler's stomach lurched – he had some idea about what she was about to say but had no idea if he actually wanted to hear it … or if he even had the courage to respond in the way she deserved.

"Commander Hess, please report to Engineering." The sudden hail caused them both to jump and Anna sighed heavily.

"Duty calls," she said, her voice heavy with emotion. She stabbed the transmit button on the internal comm-unit. "This is Hess," she snapped. "I'm on my way." Shooting him a sidelong look, Anna blew out a frustrated breath. "One of these days," she said, "you and I need to have a long talk."

"One of these days," Rick agreed. _Six months, _he reminded himself. _Six months if I'm lucky._

Somehow, though, he knew that his luck had run out.

=/\=

She had never before envisioned feeling so lucky.

The taste of freedom, true freedom, was still new to her and the former slave now known as Briseis exulted in the sensation.

Briseis. The name felt good upon her lips and she could not help but to smile each time she said it or heard someone address her by it. For the first time in her life, she was more than "slave" or "whore," and it set her apart from the other servants, made her unique. She was no longer a thing or an afterthought, but was now an actual person. The others had noticed, both the servants and the masters – the former now looked at her with envy, while the latter gave her a wide berth, principally out of fear that Khellius would do to them what he had done to her former master. In the early days of her new master's presence on Voriolas, some of the younger warriors thought to test him and treated her roughly. One even went so far as to attempt rutting with her.

And Khellius had killed him in the blink of an eye.

Since that moment, none had dared touch her or mistreat her in any way. Her position remained undefined – as a non-_tlhlngan_, she could never be more than a servant, yet she was, in all ways that mattered, the Mistress of Khellius' unnamed House. Those that needed to speak to her master first came to her, grudgingly in some instances, to be sure, but still, without her approval, one did not have access to the one who called himself Khellius, son of Peleus.

The rumors about his truename were plentiful and she heard them all. He was Duras, son of Toral, some said, the captain of the _Bortas _that had vanished in pursuit of the human, Archer, at the beginning of their war with the Xindi. Others insisted he was the disgraced heir to the House of Martok said to have been slain during a raiding expedition into the _Klach D'Kel Brakt._ The smallfolk had another theory: he was Kahless Reborn, back from _Sto'Vo'Kor _to return the Empire to its rightful glory and raise up those who were Fallen. Khellius' rivals – those he defeated in single combat and let live in shame, or those he opposed in the Small Council here on Voriolas – had another tale: he was the second coming of Molor the Tyrant … or Morath the Traitor, the story varied according to who was speaking and how badly he had been beaten.

They were all wrong. None knew the truth of the matter, none save Briseis herself for she had a special gift, a talent that no one knew about because it would invariably lead to her death. With great effort and direct physical contact, she could see into the heart of a man, could pierce the veil of lies they always draped around themselves and see the Truth. And the truth of Khellius was damning: he was not _tlhlngan_. He was, in fact, a hooman.

But Briseis – how she loved that name! – did not care.

She had spent her entire life among these monsters, obeying one master after another as they rose and fell from grace. Some were brutal, some were callous, and a very few had been indifferent, but it was not until Khellius became her master that she tasted the flavor of worth. He looked at her differently, spoke to her – through his translating machine, of course – not to order her or chastise her, but because he valued her insight. She no longer feared offering an opinion without being prompted and when she retired to his bed, she knew he would treat her not as chattel, but as a living, breathing, thinking creature.

And she worshipped him for it.

Even now, as she sat quietly in the corner of the great hall that Khellius had claimed as his own, she could not tear her eyes from her master as he held court and slowly bent lesser beings to his will through sheer personality. Goron the Fat – that was not how he had been named at birth, of course, but very few on Voriolas clung to their old names – sat at Khellius' feet, his thirst for a purpose so clear that it was rapidly reshaping him into something new. He had been the first to fall under her master's sway but was far from the last. They were a growing minority, a slowly expanding force that Briseis knew would eventually control all of Voriolas.

And then, perhaps even more.

"You are too bold, my brother," Goron the Fat declared with a laugh, his words booming. He was responding to Khellius' latest plan to seize the assets of another lesser _tlhlngan _who had supposedly wronged him. It was yet another step forward, another piece of the master's overarching plan, and not a single one of these fools were capable of realizing that they were being manipulated by one greater than they could possibly imagine.

Briseis wanted to laugh.

"Laneth has many connections," Goron continued after a moment. "I've heard talk that she once bedded General K'Vagh himself!"

"Those who do not stand with me," Khellius announced through his translating machine, "stand against me." He leaned back in the throne chair that dominated the council hall and smiled mirthlessly as he glanced in the direction of the _bat'leth _still embedded within the far wall. It was an immediate reminder that the fool who had previously claimed this hall was long dead, buried in the street outside with only his head exposed to the elements and the targs according to the Old Code; when nothing was left but the skull, dirt would be piled over the corpse and his name would be forgotten for all of time.

"You know where I stand, brother," Goron retorted instantly. "I merely wish to caution you – step too quickly and the others will unite against us."

"Then it shall be a glorious death," one of the younger warriors bellowed. The others – all twenty of them – began banging their mugs against the table and shouting their encouragement. Khellius' expression faltered only briefly and Briseis knew that she was the only one who saw it.

"When that time comes," he said through the machine strapped to his arm, "I will bring down ruinous anger and cast the souls of all who oppose us to _Sto'Vo'Kor_." The warriors roared their approval. "And their bodies will be thrown to the targs and winged beasts of prey." More explosions of support shook the rafters of the wooden building and Briseis winced at the sound. "But that is not this day," Khellius stated. "This day, we plan and train and hone our strength to sharpness."

"Point us to our doom, brother," Goron the Fat urged. He was no longer laughing and his eyes glittered with a strange fervor. "We are your blades in all things."

"Your blades!" another cried out, followed by another and another, and soon, they were all shouting and beating their hands against the table. Khellius' smile was grim but set off another eruption of oaths and pledges. They were all willing to die for him, Briseis realized from where she sat in the shadows. He had played upon their broken egos and turned them into obedient servants. _Am I so different? _she wondered. _Is this what he has done to me as well?_

She wondered why she did not care.

"Laneth is no threat to you," Goron said much later, after the younger warriors had retired to their quarters or passed out on the floor of the great hall. "I think you mean to make a statement with her death."

"Her death is not necessary," Khellius replied. Unlike his lessers, he had not touched the blood wine and his eyes were still sharp. "But you speak true. She _is _to be a statement." Goron frowned, his lack of understanding writ upon his face. "I grow weary, my brother," Khellius announced a moment later. It was an easy deception – Briseis knew that her master would spend another three or four hours conducting stealthy reconnaissance missions against his rivals before finally returning to their bed – but Goron nodded and began to back away.

"Then I shall leave you to it," he said. He strode away, pausing only long enough to kick one of the younger warriors awake so he could steal away with the boy's blood wine. Khellius watched him depart before rising from his dais and glancing in Briseis' direction. She obeyed his unspoken request without hesitation and fell into step with him as he walked toward the thick door behind the throne.

"Laneth leads you to Goroth," she said once they entered the master's quarters. A single bed, large enough for five, was flush against the far wall, with thick blankets of wool and animal skin draped upon it. Three _bat'leths _– trophies taken from Khellius' fallen foes – hung in positions of honor over the small, well-used desk adjacent to the bed, and a fourth was within easy reach for any who slept. Since her master had claimed this hall, Briseis no longer thought of this chamber as his – instead, she foolishly let herself imagine that it was _theirs._ Here they slept, here they rutted, here they plotted …

It was the closest thing to a home she had ever known.

"Yes." Khellius collapsed onto the bed and began rubbing his temples. To her great delight, he did not bother hiding his exhaustion from her and Briseis slid to his side.

"She will be a canny foe," she told her master as she began massaging the muscles of his back. Had he been capable of speech, she knew he would have groaned in appreciation. "It would be easier for you to break her," Briseis added, using the _tlhlngan _phrase used so often by warriors seeking a mate. An uncomfortable sensation writhed in her stomach at the notion of her master rutting with female other than her and she frowned.

"I know war," Khellius told her through the translating machine, "not seduction." Despite her disgust with the thought, Briseis smiled.

"Seduction _is _war, Master," she said. He gave her a sharp glare, though whether it was over her use of the honorific or the thought itself she did not know.

"I will give her the same choice I have given the others," he declared. "Alliance or subjugation. If she is wise, she will choose correctly." He inhaled sharply as her hands found an especially tight cluster of muscles upon his back. Sparks of arousal and blissful relaxation crawled up her arms, and she smiled at the tingle of sensation she knew was not hers. Her Gift had never before been a boon.

"Do you wish my advice?" she asked long minutes later. Khellius was face-down on the bed, his body loose and his mind drifting toward sleep. He was utterly relaxed and totally comfortable with her presence. She did not know how she knew this, nor did she question it. When he nodded sleepily, Briseis smiled once more and leaned down to rest her face against his broad back. "Approach her from a position of strength," she murmured. "Laneth respects power above all else." Her master began to stir and Briseis quickly continued. "If you will not break her in the traditional fashion," she said, "then break her as you would a fellow warrior. Grind her face into the dirt and let her know you are mighty." Khellius rolled to one side so he was better able to see her, and Briseis felt her face heat up at the question in his eyes. "A slave sees many things," she said. "Most of us are looked upon only as property. Few consider our insights or knowledge." When his lips tightened in anger, Briseis gave into an instinctive response; with her left hand, she reached up and touched his lips with her pointing and index fingers. Once, an eternity ago, she had seen her mother caress her father in such a manner, but that was before they were both put to death by her first master. "Laneth's crime was not her own," she said, abruptly distracted by the feel of Khellius' skin against hers. "She was wronged by one greater than she but still, she seeks those who can overpower her."

Khellius said nothing as he watched her with hooded eyes, and Briseis felt something stir within her stomach. He made no sound, made no gestures, did not even move, but she felt him call to her nonetheless, and she answered it automatically, instinctively, gladly. Their bodies became one and she allowed him to break her. Had he been anyone else, she would have fought him, tooth and claw and mind, but Khellius … Khellius owned her completely, whether he knew it or not.

Later, as he drifted off to sleep, his skin still damp from their rutting, Briseis allowed her body and thoughts to relax more completely. Khellius' flickering mind was there, waiting, and she eagerly fell toward it.

It was … beautiful.


	3. Act Two

**ACT TWO**

_Captain's starlog, February 27th, 2158. We are less than three hours away from the planet where the Xindi Council met. At Commander Eisler's suggestion, we're making a stealth approach. All personnel are at alert condition yellow. With any luck, though, this won't turn into a repeat of the last time we were here._

* * *

><p>It was … horrible.<p>

The planet hung silently against the dark void, jagged scars and immense impact craters visible even from this distance. Violent, angry storms raged across the surface of the world, some measuring hundreds of kilometers in diameter. Where before, when _Enterprise _came here so many lifetimes ago, some minimal life signs had been detected even though the Council chambers were concealed, now there was nothing alive, not even bacteria.

Above the ugly brown and gray planet, things appeared even worse. Broken husks of long dead starships were everywhere, many already captured in slowly decaying orbits that would carry them to the surface of the shattered world, but even more of them floated at the very periphery of the planet's gravity well. Two immense space platforms of a disturbingly alien design were still mostly intact and anchored at what would likely be the L1 or L2 Lagrangian points, but the gaping holes in their hulls and exposed superstructure were clear indications that they were no longer operational.

Selina Mayweather thought she was going to be sick.

She had not moved from the Helm station for the last six hours, principally due to the level of expertise needed to creep into the Xindi system undetected, but also because she had little else to do aboard _Endeavour. _Despite having been aboard the ship for nearly five months, she still felt like an outsider and hadn't made a real effort to make any friends with her crewmates. They were simply co-workers, senior officers to obey or junior officers and enlisted personnel to command. This way, she reflected, there wasn't a chance of her getting attached to anyone and she wouldn't be ripped apart when they died…

In that moment, it took every gram of her willpower to avoid thinking about Rashid.

"What do you have, T'Pol?" the captain asked from his command chair. He sounded grim, angry and tired, all at the same time, and though he was only a few years older than Lina, she couldn't help but to think that he reminded her far too much of her late father.

"No life signs detected," the Vulcan first officer replied. Apart from the commander's voice, the chirp of her sensor console, and the subtle hum of the ship's engines, the bridge was deathly silent. Lina glanced quickly to her left – Lieutenant Commander Sato was staring at the viewscreen with a conflicted expression on her face, which, if Travis' letters had been accurate, probably wasn't a surprise. The Xindi _had _tortured Sato, after all. "Preliminary scans indicate that this destruction is months old," T'Pol continued.

"Dammit." The shift of cloth warned Lina that Captain Tucker had pushed himself to his feet. "What's the planetary status?" he asked.

"I do not advise a landing party, Captain," T'Pol replied immediately. "Radiation levels are too high for environment suits to be effective."

"We could try one of the more intact starships," Commander Eisler suggested, his gruff, accented voice low and hard. Automatically, Lina glanced toward his station, noting without surprise that he hardly seemed bothered by the sheer scope of the damage before them. "At worst," the tactical officer added, "we might be able to obtain additional intelligence on the combatants." The captain grunted.

"T'Pol?" he asked.

"There are four viable vessels," she declared. On the main viewer, a quartet of broken starships was suddenly outlined by digital brackets. "All have suffered extensive structural damage," the Vulcan said in her no-nonsense manner. Lina tapped out a quick command on her console.

"There's a lot of debris around those ships," she pointed out, "and it looks like only one of them has a functional docking port." Too late, she realized that her comment sounded defensive, as if she doubted her ability to maneuver _Endeavour _through the debris field, but just as quickly, Lina silently acknowledged that she was merely making a point. Even with the deflection array and hull polarization system both operating at one hundred percent, there was a strong possibility of at least some minor hull damage.

"Confirmed," T'Pol declared less than a heartbeat later. "I recommend we use the transporter to deploy the landing party."

"Agreed," Eisler said instantly. "STAB Team first to conduct a security sweep, then an engineering team to assess what we can recover."

"Do it," Captain Tucker ordered. "T'Pol, I want-"

"Sensors to be manned at all times," the Vulcan finished wryly. "Yes, Captain."

"Rick-"

"Reports on the hour," Eisler finished, his tone as dry as T'Pol's. "No unnecessary risks. Yes, sir." The captain chuckled.

"At least allow me the illusion of being in command here," Tucker said, his comment breaking the tense mood.

Lina spent another hour and a half at her station, watching in relative silence as the landing party began their search. She was only vaguely surprised that Commander Eisler did not lead the mission – he had a tendency to take a more hands-on approach on these sorts of missions than Lina would even consider – but ever since his promotion to full commander prior to their departure for the Expanse, he'd started easing himself out of field operations. She spent only a few moments briefing Lieutenant Zhao when the navigation officer arrived to relieve her and then made a beeline for the mess deck; by accident, Lina had missed lunch and her stomach was rumbling.

To her silent relief, the dining facility was relatively empty for a change, likely due to Commander Eisler putting the numerous security troopers to work, which allowed her to find a discreet, empty table near one of the corners so she could focus on her food and the work still ahead of her. Lina ate robotically, barely noticing the taste of whatever it was she'd grabbed, all the while scanning through the department memos and status reports on her PADD. Warrant Officer Gray's latest complaint revolved around the two assault re-entry crafts and their level of maintenance; as the 'sky boss' – a nonsensical title, Lina thought, if there ever was one – he oversaw every facet of ARC and shuttlepod activity, whether it was operational or repairs, and he was, to Mayweather's continued frustration, the biggest thorn in her side.

She had nearly finished her latest response to Gray – no, he could _not _schedule ARC One for a level ten diagnostic without first getting Commander Hess' clearance since it would be her personnel doing the work, and yes, she would speak with the first officer about Commander Eisler's tendency to arbitrarily reassign the sky boss' personnel – when she realized that the dining facility was beginning to fill up. Most of the crew entering appeared to be security and Selina couldn't help but to notice how Ensign Stiles, as sullen as normal, automatically isolated himself from the very people he was supposed to be commanding. Once he had his food, he marched to a corner table and took a seat, glaring at the starfield beyond like it was responsible for his status as_persona non grata_ aboard the ship. No one bothered to approach him and more than a few gave him subtle looks of contempt. Lina had heard the rumors about how Eisler publicly chewed the ensign out but even before then, she'd noticed his steadfast refusal to act like part of a team. Stiles was, in every sense of the word, alone.

And abruptly, Selina realized she was no different.

It was not as if no one aboard had made overtures toward her. Commander Hess had reached out when she first joined _Endeavour's _crew, but thanks to her stupid brother's letters, Lina had immediately thought that Hess was trying to get into her pants and had gone out of her way to avoid the chief engineer unless duty demanded it. Later, when Lieutenant Commander Sato briefly joined the crew, she'd also tried to be friendly, several times beginning conversations with anecdotes about Travis, but Selina had always come up with an excuse why she couldn't talk. In both cases, the women in question were intelligent enough to recognize that their overtures weren't appreciated and had backed off, which resulted in the junior officers following suit. For all intents and purposes, Selina didn't have a single friend aboard _Endeavour._ She was utterly and completely alone.

Again.

Suddenly uncomfortable with the direction her thoughts were taking her, she quickly bussed her tray and exited the dining facility. Her cabin held no interest to her – the pictures that she'd put up of her father, Travis and her late husband now seemed to exist only as reminders of a future she would never see. Thor's Cradle was nearly a year and a half in the past, but the memory of Rashid's last words to her – _It'll be fine, Lina. Paul needs one of us to look after him and your mother needs you on the _Horizon _while she recovers _– continued to haunt her. Never again would her stupid husband whistle that ridiculous off-key tune while he was working. Never again would she wake in the middle of the night to find that he'd stolen the covers again. Never again would she feel his hands on her skin or his lips against hers.

Never again.

_This was what you wanted, _she told herself as she wandered the corridors of _Endeavour_._Stay aloof_, she'd originally decided, _and keep your distance. Don't let yourself get attached to anyone. You don't need anyone else. Friends are a luxury, not a necessity._At the time, they seemed to be wise words but were cold comfort when she was sitting in the dark, staring at the bulkhead or watching one of Travis' last vid-letters for the hundredth time.

"Aren't you off-duty?" Lieutenant Commander Ricker asked when Lina entered the command center an eternity later. The junior science officer appeared mostly engrossed in what looked to be sensor readings, but had discarded her duty jacket. A two-dimensional representation of the Xindi system was displayed on the main viewer with hundreds of small mass signatures already identified. Currently, one of the larger silhouettes was enclosed by a flashing reticle, above which was a graphical representation for a deployed STAB team.

"Aren't you?" Lina retorted as she joined Ricker at the main console. "I was bored and wanted to do something productive," Mayweather added. "What are you doing?"

"Tagging all of the sensor data," Ricker said. She tapped a rapid command into the system and a smaller reticle flashed. "I'm hoping to find something useful," she added a moment later. At Lina's glance, Ricker frowned. "The Roughnecks are coming up empty," she said. "None of the ship's they've boarded are helping – all we've been able to figure out so far is that the Xindi themselves are responsible for this mess."

"Ah." Lina was silent for a long moment while she watched Ricker work. "This looks … boring."

"You have no idea," Ricker muttered. She manipulated her controls to move the sensor reticle to another unmarked signature. "T'Pol normally handles this sort of thing," she said, "but she's busy with data analysis…" Abruptly, the science officer frowned and gave Lina a sidelong look. "Is everything okay?" she asked hesitantly. "You're usually not very …"

"Friendly?" Lina finished with a sour look on her face. She glanced away, wondering how much to tell the other woman. "My brother, Travis, died at Elysium," she finally said, flinching fractionally at the sharp intake of breath she heard from Ricker, "and I lost my husband at the Cradle."

"I'm sorry," Ricker said softly. She forced a smile. "I lost someone there too," she admitted sadly. "We weren't married – hell, he wasn't even an officer and I think he would run screaming if I even floated the idea – but …" Her board chirped and Ricker tapped a quick command. "I think everyone aboard has lost someone somewhere since this stupid war began," she said bitterly.

"Work helps," Lina said tightly. The immense pressure that had been riding her shoulders seemed to have lifted slightly, though she might have just imagined it. She gestured toward the screen. "Show me what to do," she said, "and I'll give you a hand." Ricker smiled.

"That," she said brightly, "I can do."

=/\= =/\=

It was on days like this that he feared he couldn't do this job.

His head pounding, Jonathan Archer leaned back in his chair and fought the urge to scream as he disconnected the connection to the Vulcan consulate. _I hate this damned job, _he snarled mentally as he pushed himself out of his chair and stretched. Muscles too long frozen in the same position protested and he groaned, once more lamenting his current position in life. Ever since the president appointed him to Commander-in-Chief, Starfleet, he could count on one hand the number of times he'd had a full night's sleep.

"I apologize, Admiral," Ambassador V'Lar had informed him only moments before, her tone sincere, "but the Fullara technique does not seem effective on your security personnel." Jon had somehow managed to keep from cursing although he knew his disappointment and frustration had been stamped on his face. He had absolutely no idea what to do. The security personnel previously assigned to Thomas Gardner were in perfect health apart from their continued inability to perceive Rajiin, digitally or physically, but Jon knew that they remained a security risk. What if the Oran'taku had done something else to them, something the Vulcans couldn't detect? How could he dare risk anyone else's life on the chance that the fifteen men and three women were now unknowing sleeper agents? On the heels of that thought came another: what right did he have to imprison them when they hadn't done anything wrong? For all he knew, the only thing she'd done to them was make it so they couldn't see her. How could he possibly ruin their careers on what might amount to a paranoid fear?

_Quite easily_, he realized with great disgust. The needs of the many once more outweighed the needs of the few and he scribbled a quick signature on new orders that would reassign all of these personnel to the consulate on Vulcan where they could be discreetly monitored for any hints of brainwashing.

The latest status reports of the fleet crawled down one of the five wall monitors in his office, and Jon paused before it, a frown on his face. Four months had elapsed since the Romulan attack on Earth, one hundred and twenty-five days since the last sign of the aliens that had viciously attacked humanity, and Archer couldn't shake the feeling that this was simply the calm before the storm. There were others in Command who disagreed, none more vociferously than his Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Wang Yan, although Jon was thoroughly convinced that Wang was saying so simply because he disagreed on virtually every single policy that Archer supported.

His study of the fleet status yielded little positive. The shipyards were on track to deploy another trio of _Daedalus_-classes – the _Acheron_, the _Thermopylae_, and the _Moscow_ – which would bring the total fleet strength to barely twenty of the heavier, faster ships, not including _Endeavour _or _Discovery_, both of which remained the pinnacle of efficiency, or the still capable but sadly archaic _Icelands_. Work continued on the two new _Endeavour-_classes, _Gagarin _and _Shenzhou_, and if they were very, very lucky, one or perhaps both of them would complete their warp trials by the middle of March. Two more of that class – _Buran _and _Komarov _– were on the drafting table, with some of the brightest minds in Starfleet trying to find a faster way to construct the ships.

And then, there was the _Defiant._

Only a handful of personnel even knew about the plans for the new class of ships and each one had been handpicked by Jon himself for capability, discretion and out-of-the-box thinking. Daniel Jeffries, the son of the late admiral who had headed first the warp five and then later the warp six program before his death, was heading up the research into the initial design, and not a day didn't pass that Jon did not _seriously _consider pulling both Trip and T'Pol off _Endeavour _to head up the construction of the starship. On one hand, he knew that they were doing a necessary job on the NC-06 – _Endeavour _wasn't even two years old but was already considered by most fleet officers to be the duty station of choice – but on the other, Archer couldn't think of anyone in the entire quadrant better qualified to handle the Defiant Project.

Jon blew out a deep breath and wondered if he could bring himself to actually remove Trip from command of _Endeavour. _Somehow, he doubted it.

The chirp of his door annunciator dragged him out of his reflection, and Archer straightened his stance. A glance at a nearby chronometer confirmed that it was time for his daily briefing with the senior admirals regarding fleet readiness and Jon knew he was going to need all the strength he could muster to avoid losing his temper.

"Enter," he called out. Wang entered first, followed by Admiral Burnside Clapp, and a half dozen other officers whom Jon barely acknowledged beyond a quick nod of greeting. His mood soured even further when Park Min-ho, the new Defense Minister recently appointed to the position by President Molyneux in the wake of the Romulan attack on Earth, followed the admirals in. As usual, the minster was wearing an impeccable suit that probably cost more than a shuttlepod and an expression so dark that it bordered on hateful.

"Let's get started," Jon said without preamble. He gestured toward the large conference table, inwardly fighting the desire to just throw in the towel. Every day that passed reminded him once more that he was a pilot by training, not an administrator or, God forbid, a _politician._

For the next two hours, he played referee to the various A-type personalities that made up the admiralty as they bickered and argued over the strategic overview of the war. Wang and Burnside Clapp were at one another's throats once more, with Commodore Domeij, the new Special Warfare Commander, alternately siding first with one, then with the other. The reconstitution of the fleet was the principal point of contention, with pretty much everyone but Burnside Clapp opposing Jon's decision to break the ships down into smaller, lighter, faster strike groups.

"My decision is final," Archer was finally forced to declare sharply. "Our sole advantage is speed and mobility," he pointed out darkly, "and I will not give that up in favor of obsolete tactics that are proven to fail." When Wang's eyes narrowed, Jon pinned him with a glare. "Need I remind you of Acheron?" he asked.

Evidently, he did.

"That was a failure of planning," Wang quickly argued, "not of fleet composition." He drew in a breath to add more but Minister Park abruptly spoke up for the first time.

"I believe," the defense minister said softly, his voice carrying, "that Admiral Archer's decision in this matter is the correct one." As one, the flag officers gave the sole civilian present their full attention, though Jon could see differing reactions to the man's words. Wang seethed but bit back his frustration, while Domeij looked at the minister like he was something to be scraped off of his boots. Recently promoted Commodore Assad actually seemed surprised that the defense minister was speaking and the expression of distrust on Burnside Clapp's face was so obvious that Archer doubted anyone _wasn't _aware of the admiral's thoughts.

"Thank you, Minister," Jon said flatly before lifting another PADD off the table. "In light of our continued inability to get effective intelligence on the Romulans," he continued, "I've dispatched the _Hyperion _on a scouting run to Zeta Reticuli."

"For God's sake, Archer," Wang snapped, his eyes flashing, "you can't keep doing this!" The other admirals glanced away, most visibly uncomfortable with Wang's outburst but more than a few, including Burnside Clapp to Jon's surprise, seeming to agree with the V-CNO. "First you send _Endeavour _into the Expanse without consulting _any _of us and now this?"

"That will be enough, _Admiral_," Jon barked. He locked eyes with the vice chief of naval operations.

Wang looked away first.

"_Hyperion's _commander has explicit orders to maintain as low a profile as possible," Archer said. "We need to know what the Romulans are up to and we need to know now."

"Agreed," Burnside Clapp interjected, "but I have to question your decision to use _Hyperion._" He shook his head. "_Discovery _is in-system for refit and Aubrey would have been a better choice for this." Jon shook his head.

"No, he wouldn't," he said. Wang bristled – Jack Aubrey had served under him for years and the two were friends of a sort – but Jon ignored him. "_Hyperion _is a _Daedalus_," he stated calmly, hating himself just a little bit for the words about to come out of his mouth. "If the recon fails," Archer pointed out harshly, "we lose a _Daedalus._ Could we afford to lose one of the only remaining NX's?"

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you sent _Endeavour _off on a wild goose chase," Wang muttered.

"I see your point," Burnside Clapp said, "but Hsiao is just a lieutenant commander. Is he really up for this?"

"He is," the bearded man in the far corner of the office said. Command Master Chief Stefan Apostolaki was the senior-most enlisted man in Starfleet, and had served terms with both the MACOs and UESPA before retiring three months before Elysium. The late Admiral Gardner had requested Apostolaki to return to oversee the MACO-Starfleet integration, and Jon had later asked him to remain on active service until the war was over. As far as Archer knew, there wasn't a single person in Starfleet who didn't respect Apostolaki. "I spoke to his senior chiefs before _Hyperion _launched," Apostolaki added, "and they were unanimous in their respect for Commander Hsiao."

"Thank you, Master Chief," Jon said, barely able to hide his smile. It was amazing how just a few words from Apostolaki had killed any opposition to Hsiao's assignment. Even Wang's expression had changed to one of acceptance. "Moving on," Archer continued a heartbeat later. "We still need to address who will captain _Gagarin _and _Shenzhou _when they deploy." The comment started a firestorm of debate as the officers all began jockeying to name their personal favorites for the position. Even Minister Park offered a few suggestions, his familiarity with the senior command echelon of Starfleet yet another hint that he was more hands-on than his predecessor.

T'Pol's name was conspicuously absent.

Jon knew the reasons – as far as most of the officers present were concerned, she was not an option simply because she hadn't been in Starfleet long enough, not to mention the fact that she was a Vulcan. There had nearly been a revolt in the officer corps when Admiral Forrest gave her a commission as a full commander following the Expanse mission, and Archer couldn't imagine how they'd react if he suggested they promote her to captain. Hell, most of them looked at _him _cross-eyed because they felt his advancement was too rapid.

Suddenly reminded of the conversation he'd had with Trip shortly before Acheron, Jon decided to keep his opinion about T'Pol's qualities to himself. He knew that, if he asked it of his former first officer, she would very likely accept out of a sense of duty rather than a sincere desire for her own command, but at the same time, he knew that such a request would drive an irreparable breach between him and Trip. Their friendship had barely survived the cogenitor incident or Archer's distance in the Expanse, and he knew that it couldn't take many more hits.

By the time the admirals departed, there was a shortlist of names for consideration for the two ships and Jon waited until he was alone in his office to slump back in his chair. The PADD with the officers – captains and commanders, all with a dozen reasons to recommend them and twice that to reject them – he tossed aside without bothering to give it a second look. He rose from his chair once more and strode from the office, pausing only long enough to secure it behind him. Right now, he had to move, had to get some exercise and get his blood pumping or his head would explode. Looking over a list of officers to determine which of them would have the job Jon wanted was the last thing in the world he had a desire to do.

There would be time for it later.

=/\= =/\=

There was no more time.

His face set in an angry scowl, Thy'lek Hravishran th'Zoarhi leaned forward in his command chair and studied the tactical readout on the main viewscreen. In terms of simple numbers, it was an even match – he had sixteen ships under his command, including the _Kolari_, and there were an equal number defending the objective – but that was where the similarities ended. His battlegroup was heavier, tougher, faster and with bigger guns, not to mention his captains were all more experienced. Only a fool would willingly stand against them in obsolete cruisers that should have left the service decades ago.

A fool … or a loyalist.

"Go to condition black," Shran ordered tersely, and his bridge crew scrambled to obey. None of them seemed particularly concerned that they were on the verge of spilling Andorian blood, but that was not much of a surprise. Theirs was an especially belligerent species, not known for their deep culture or peaceful nature. The only thing hot about Andoria, it was said, was the tempers of its inhabitants. Once, Shran had been the foremost among them, as likely to respond to a friendly greeting with naked violence as he was to simply nod, but time and bitter experience had tempered him, forced him to evolve and turned him into a creature that actually considered the effects of his actions.

And oh, how he hated it.

"Has there been any response to our demands?" he asked. His newly appointed first officer glowered sullenly.

"None, Commander," Keval said flatly. "They are maneuvering into defensive positions – I think they mean to fight us."

Shran sighed.

He had desperately hoped to avoid this – the taking of this outpost was a necessary element in his overall plan, but he had not factored in the stupidity of his foes. They were outgunned and outclassed in every way, and Shran had expected them to act rationally. Retreat in the face of a superior foe was the only option.

_Would you have retreated? _Jhamel's question drifted across his consciousness from light years away – she had been displeased at his intention to leave her in a safe place while he waged his war, but the revulsion she felt toward violence led to her agreement – and Shran grimaced. Of course he wouldn't have quit the field – only a coward fled battle. _So then, _he told himself wryly, _I must win this engagement through diplomacy._

Jhamel laughed.

"Channel open," Shran demanded. Keval gave him another sidelong look – he had been doing that rather frequently of late, ever since he first set eyes upon Jhamel, and it was beginning to get annoying – but grudgingly obeyed. "To loyalist forces," Shran said into the comm-line, "I order you to stand down."

"We take no instructions from a traitor," came an instant, fiery response. Shran smiled and gestured for Keval to identify the source of the transmission.

"And no traitor issues these orders," Shran replied. "I represent a duly established Assembly, elected in abstentia." On the main viewscreen, one of the old cruisers was suddenly enclosed by a bright blue digital bracket. "As the Sword of this Assembly, Commander Telthos," Shran continued, identifying the speaker with a smile on his lips, "it is within my rights to demand your immediate and unconditional surrender. You know this."

"I'll be dead before I surrender to the likes of you," Commander Telthos retorted. His image abruptly appeared on the main viewscreen. Once a large _thaan_, Telthos' muscle was now running to fat and his jowls shook as he continued his rant. "This … Assembly of yours is no such thing," he spat. "You and yours are traitors and will die as traitors!"

"Energy spike!" Keval exclaimed suddenly and Shran felt the last vestiges of hope for a non-violent resolution wither and die as Telthos' opening barrage splattered harmlessly against the _Kolari's _shields. _This is why your Way is not for me, _he lamented to Jhamel. Already, he could feel her begin to grieve for those about to die.

He did not have the luxury of her compassion.

"Send to all ships," he announced after double-checking that he was broadcasting on an open channel, "any ship that powers down its weapon systems is to be left intact." He speared Telthos with a black look. "All others, destroy them."

Twenty light years away, Jhamel began to weep.

It was over nearly before it began. The lead defense crafts attacked in a traditional spearhead wedge, with Telthos' antiquated cruiser at the very tip of the formation, while the smaller ships assaulted the flanks of Shran's battlegroup. A familiar tactic, the spearhead was far too conservative and had the immediate result of giving Shran's two heavier ships – his own _Kolari_ and the _Dantari _– clear shots at the slower moving trail ships. The space over the planetary body was suddenly alive with torpedoes as Shran's battlegroup immediately counterattacked. Ignoring the spearhead entirely, he drove his force straight into the heart of the loyalist formation. Particle cannons _thrummed _heavily, punching completely through the ineffective defenses of the slower ships and ripping them apart. Two died instantly, vanishing in violent explosions that ripped them apart. A third light cruiser shuddered under the concentrated barrage before suddenly breaking away from the engagement entirely, its engines flickering and sputtering sporadically.

Reeling from the battlegroup's assault, the defending ships broke formation and scattered, any hint of discipline gone in the face of their utter destruction. Shran ignored most of the fleeing craft – they weren't a threat to the rebellion and most of them were little more than followers – and concentrated his force's firepower against Telthos' cruiser. It was quite probably unnecessarily cruel – _It is! _Jhamel mindwept – but as the head of those who had opposed the Sword of the Assembly, Telthos had to be dealt with in the most permanent way possible.

The cruiser rocked and trembled as pinpoint fire from the particle cannons burned away the armor plating and torpedoes corkscrewed through the silent void to detonate against the hull. Explosions ravaged the ship, tearing open great gaping holes that spilled out precious oxygen and fragile bodies. Another swarm of the lethal ordinance blew the port winglet completely off, instantly setting of a chain reaction of secondary explosions throughout the entire ship.

Bare seconds later, the cruiser was little more than an expanding cloud of debris.

"Hard about," Shran snapped through a clenched jaw. Jhamel was sobbing at the senseless waste of life and her grief was threatening to overwhelm his self control. "Damage report!"

"All systems functioning," the engineering officer announced. Shran gave her a dark look – he needed more information than that! – and she visibly quailed before his fury. "Deflector screens holding at fifty percent," she stated quickly. "Weapons still at ninety percent efficiency." Shran shifted his attention to Keval.

"Fleet status!" he growled.

"No losses," came the instant response. "Four hostiles have powered down their weapons and are retreating from the engagement zone."

"And the others?" Shran asked. When Keval shook his head, Shran could feel Jhamel cry out once more. He pushed it down, swallowed the bile churning in his stomach, and ignored the self-loathing that was only partially his. "My orders stand," he hissed. "Engage and destroy."

Another thirty minutes passed before the last of the hostiles were finally neutralized, and the process cost Shran a good ship and a better crew which left him in an even fouler mood than before. He knew that he should be celebrating – one cruiser lost in an engagement with twelve hostiles that ended with seven destroyed and five captured was a victory by any definition – but he felt violently sick. How many of his fellow Guardsmen had just died at his orders? How many would have willingly joined the cause but were never given the opportunity because their commanders were snowblinded fools?

"A good day," Keval said an eternity later, once they had stood down from condition black. He was all smiles and giddy excitement.

"Was it?" Shran asked softly. "Five hundred and fifty of our brothers and sisters died here today," he pointed out darkly. "This was no victory … it was a tragedy."

"We are waging a war, Commander," Keval replied, his tone wry. "In war, soldiers die. You knew blood would need to be shed here." Shran stood, balling his hands into tight fists.

"Today," he said coldly, "we have inflicted more casualties upon the Andorian people than the Vulcans accomplished in two centuries." Keval recoiled at the remark and a hush fell upon the bridge. "We do what must be done to overthrow the corrupt Council but we will not … we _must not_ take joy in this." He took a step away before nodding toward the wreckage filling the viewscreen. "Those that oppose us will fight harder now," he said. "The blood we shed today is but just a taste of what is to come."

Without another word, he strode away from the command deck. Someday, he knew that he would be able to look back on this battle as the necessary evil it was. Those that were lost would be set to rest and, if he was fortunate, Shran knew that he would finally be able to accept that their deaths were part of the Great Tapestry. And on that day, he would be able to accept that he had not slain these soldiers but that their fates were woven by Uzaveh the Infinite before the stars were born.

Someday, perhaps, but not today.

=/\= =/\=

The day was already proving to be a taxing one.

They had arrived at the former Skagaran colony twenty-five standard hours earlier. Originally, there had been no plans to re-visit this planet, but upon finding the Xindi council world an abandoned ruin, Commander Eisler had recommended they establish a forward operating base for their continued explorations of the Expanse. His reasoning had been quite logical: not only would the construction of such a base allow them to offload a considerable number of the security personnel he had taken from the three _Daedalus_-classes assigned to the _Endeavour _strike group, this location was ideally suited for their needs. In addition to providing a spot for the crew to enjoy recreation on a planetary surface, the forward operating base also served a more necessary function – the security personnel left behind were tasked with gaining additional supplies, whether through barter with the human and Skagaran descendants on the planet or through direct agricultural activities.

T'Pol had been initially surprised at the commander's suggestion, especially as it indicated a level of strategic planning she had not been prepared for. When she had grudgingly agreed to Eisler's original request to bring the additional security personnel aboard _Endeavour_, she had done so believing that he simply desired to augment the capabilities of the Roughnecks, but now, it was becoming clear that he had been planning on the establishment of this forward operating base from the beginning.

The exact location of the FOB – as the commander referred to it – was isolated and in an especially difficult to reach location on the planet without the use of shuttles. By the end of the first day, the security personnel, augmented by a sizable portion of the engineering staff and any other crewmembers not on duty, had erected a series of concrete barriers that enclosed the entire location and would provide more than effective defense against the small arms possessed by the locals planetside. Commander Eisler was not satisfied, however, and T'Pol observed with no small amount of interest as he directed the construction of additional defensive structures at key locations, utilizing _Endeavour's _spare resources to build watchtowers at each of the four corners of the walled compound. Only then did he allow tents to be placed.

Most of the security personnel had remained on-site overnight, as did a surprising number of the other _Endeavour _crewmembers. By planetary dawn, when T'Pol accompanied Trip to visit the FOB, the NC-06 was operating on barely a skeleton crew. It was most illogical – in her experience, T'Pol had found humans were generally uninterested in extensive physical labor while 'off-duty' but every officer or crewman who requested leave to visit the planet did so knowing that Commander Eisler would put them to work at the forward operating base.

"Somebody's been busy," Trip remarked as their shuttlepod banked through the planetary cloud cover and the FOB came into sight. A fifth watchtower had been added during the night. Squatting at the base of this tower was a low building that had been assembled from pre-fab materials that had been in _Endeavour _storage since before launch but had never actually been used. Both of the assault re-entry vehicles were parked within the confines of the FOB and it appeared that at least one guard was assigned to each of the vessels to prevent unauthorized access.

"Indeed," T'Pol remarked before returning her attention to the PADD in her hands. For the last hour, she had been reviewing Commander Eisler's list of goals for the operating base and was, thus far, unable to discern any flaws in his strategic outline. Busy did not begin to describe his efforts.

Warrant Officer Gray landed the shuttlepod on a wide, empty spot next to the ARCs, and T'Pol barely restrained a sigh at how quickly Trip reached for the hatch. Like so many of his fellow humans, he too had been eager to spend time on the planet and, in his words, 'get his hands dirty,' but T'Pol had impressed upon him the importance of maintaining proper decorum for an officer of his position.

Or at least, she _thought _she had done so.

The air outside the shuttlepod was sharp and cooler than T'Pol was entirely comfortable with, but the rising sun was already beginning to burn away the early morning fog. Commanders Eisler and Hess were, as usual, arguing over some trivial point when T'Pol emerged from the shuttlepod, but there was a strange intensity between the two that had not been present before.

"Captain, Commander," Eisler greeted as he approached. He gave Hess a quick sidelong look – she returned it instantly without being prompted – but oddly, did not meet the engineer's eyes. T'Pol quirked an eyebrow. "The FOB will be fully operational by tomorrow, sir," Eisler continued, his hands automatically vanishing behind his back.

"Looks operational now," Trip remarked as he glanced around, pausing to give Hoshi a quick nod. Lieutenant Commander Sato was laboring alongside Doctors Phlox and Reyes in what appeared to be a wide strip of dirt T'Pol suspected to be meant for a garden. All three were laughing about something and T'Pol's eyebrow climbed a centimeter higher. She fought the urge to shake her head.

"Der Kommandant isn't satisfied yet," Hess said wryly, her words causing Trip to smirk and the tactical officer to frown. "I think I've talked him out of mining the valley," she added with a grin that did not quite touch her eyes.

"With your permission, Captain," Eisler said, "I'm going to leave Senior Chief Petty Officer Luckabaugh behind to assist Ensign Stiles in bringing the FOB online."

"That'll leave us without a chief of the boat," Trip pointed out. "Think Mitchell is up to the job?"

"Luckabaugh insists that he is," Eisler replied.

"All right," Trip said. "Request approved." He gave T'Pol a glance – she returned it without thinking and raised an eyebrow slightly – before gesturing toward the nearby concrete wall. "Is all of this necessary?" he asked. "As I recall, the locals weren't exactly big threats."

"Nor were they especially friendly," Eisler retorted. He fell into step beside the captain as Trip began walking through the FOB. T'Pol and Commander Hess followed, with the engineer's forced good cheer fading rapidly. Her troubled eyes, T'Pol realized, were locked on Eisler's hands that were currently clasped together in the small of his back. "This location is suitably remote that any locals will need to be actively seeking us out as opposed to accidentally stumbling upon us." He nodded toward the barriers. "The defenses are a precaution, sir, nothing more."

"Is leaving one of the ARCs a precaution too?" Trip asked. He smirked at the sight of several junior officers – Lieutenants Kornegay, Rostova and Zhao – arguing rather loudly with a number of the Roughnecks over the placement of their tents. The security personnel were all male, T'Pol realized, which likely made this discussion some form of ridiculous human courting ritual.

"A sensible one, sir," the tactical officer answered. He went on to explain how the assault re-entry vehicle would serve as both a defensive asset and a transport craft, but T'Pol paid only partial attention to his words. Instead, she studied his body language, hoping to discern what was worrying Commander Hess. Nearly instantly, T'Pol realized that Eisler's normally fluid gait was awkward, almost clumsy at times. His hands shook on occasion, though he generally kept them hidden from sight by standing at what the former MACOs called 'parade rest.' Even more damning was the subtle hints of discomfort that periodically flashed across his face – he concealed them all quite well, but if one knew what to look for, they were quite obvious.

Which certainly explained Commander Hess' poorly concealed concern.

They spent thirty minutes inspecting the base, during which time T'Pol remained mostly silent as she mulled over the mounting evidence regarding Commander Eisler's status. Trip noticed her distraction, but did not call attention to it and instead focused on what he privately called his 'captain's face.' Now that she was giving it more consideration, T'Pol realized that Commander Eisler had been systematically pulling back from active field exercises for weeks. He no longer led Roughnecks on landing parties and instead delegated these tasks to his senior non-commissioned officers. She also could not recall the last time she had seen the commander in the gymnasium. Her eyes narrowed suddenly – recently, he had also logged a considerable amount of time in Sickbay, but she had thought nothing of it, presuming he was simply coordinating new training regimens with Doctor Phlox.

She excused herself at the earliest opportunity and returned to _Endeavour _aboard the next shuttlepod supply run. Once aboard, she followed standard procedure by advising Lieutenant Kimura, the current duty officer, of her presence before returning to her cabin where she began conducting additional research. Phlox's records were distressingly easy to break into – she made a note to speak to the doctor about the importance of file security; at times, he was far too trusting for his own good – and T'Pol spent another two hours studying the data in front of her.

When she was done, she checked in once more – Lieutenant Commander Riggs had replaced Kimura as watch officer, but there were still no emergencies requiring her attention – before opting to meditate. At the back of her mind, she could sense Trip's emotions and allowed their warmth to wash over her thoughts. He was still planetside and had organized some form of sporting event – she thought it was the same one he and Admiral Archer had played with Zobral's clan so many lifetimes ago, but she did not tap too deeply of their mindlink to assuage her vague curiosity.

Meditation provided her with no answers and T'Pol emerged from her whitespace still unsettled. She could not help but to empathize with Commander Eisler's desire for discretion – had she not done the same once she learned of the Pa'nar? She would have greatly preferred that Captain Archer never learn of the condition – but their current circumstances dictated confrontation. If even a quarter of what she had read concerning the symptoms of this Krupitzer's Syndrome were accurate, the commander could quickly transition from asset to hindrance. Grimly, T'Pol rose to her feet: she needed more data.

Phlox was back aboard _Endeavour _barely twenty minutes later in response to her hail, dirtier than before but with a brighter smile than T'Pol recalled seeing on him for a very long time. His good mood faltered and vanished when she cornered him and began to ask about the Krupitzer's. Initially, he was defensive, erroneously believing that she was accusing him of being negligent, but once he realized she was uninterested in affixing blame, he opened up rather vociferously.

"I have exhausted every avenue available," he finally admitted. "Since this disease is genetic," he added, "I have even enlisted the aid of Doctor Soong." At T'Pol's upraised eyebrow, he rushed on. "Discreetly, of course, but I felt that, since he is the foremost expert in regards to human genetics, he would be the _logical _choice of consultants."

"And your prognosis?" T'Pol asked. Phlox sighed.

"Terminal," he said. "With Doctor Soong's assistance, I have developed a treatment for patients in the early stages of this disease, but Commander Eisler … the defects on chromosome four are simply too extensive." T'Pol nodded, a purely human gesture she barely realized that she had adopted; in normal humans, the trinucleotide repeat in the HTT gene appeared between ten and twenty-eight times, but for Commander Eisler, this repeat was in excess of one hundred and fifty, and despite the advances in medical technology, the manipulation of DNA remained a difficult proposition at best.

After concluding her conversation with Phlox, T'Pol retreated to her office (which was little more than an unused research lab on C- Deck) where she considered her options. Trip would need to be informed of this discovery and she knew it would distress him considerably. Although he often pretended otherwise, she knew that her mate liked the commander immensely and considered him more a friend than a junior officer. In the end, though, she realized that she would need to speak to the commander first.

Eisler responded to her summons fairly quickly and from the stance he assumed when he entered, she suspected he had been warned by Doctor Phlox that she was aware of his situation.

"It has come to my notice," T'Pol began calmly, "that you are suffering from a terminal neurological condition."

"Yes, ma'am," Commander Eisler replied. His jaw was clenched tightly and he was staring straight ahead without making eye contact. "I apologize for failing to inform my chain of command about my change in status, ma'am," he added tightly. "Doctor Phlox repeatedly advised me to inform you but I urged him to keep this silent. He is blameless in this matter."

"I am well aware of Doctor Phlox's discretion in terms of medical conditions, Commander," T'Pol said wryly. At his disbelieving expression, she made a split-second decision to share a tiny bit of her history with this man. They were, after all, far more similar than he suspected. "Five years ago," she stated calmly, "I contracted a terminal neurological disorder and Doctor Phlox did not reveal this condition to my commanding officer until it became necessary."

"You do not look sick," Eisler remarked hesitantly. His posture relaxed fractionally.

"I was cured by a Vulcan expert in the condition," T'Pol said. She gave the commander another look. "By Starfleet regulation," she said, "I am required to advise the captain of your condition." Eisler's jaw tightened even further.

"Yes, ma'am."

"As long as Doctor Phlox agrees that you are capable of continuing your job," T'Pol continued, "I see no reason why you cannot remain tactical officer." The commander blinked in mild surprise. "This is predicated on the doctor's continued approval," she said and he nodded.

"Yes, ma'am," Eisler replied, drawing in a relieved breath. "Thank you, ma'am." His eyes glittered with emotion though his face remained oddly impassive. "You won't regret this." T'Pol raised an eyebrow.

"Regret," she said simply, "is an emotion."


	4. Act Three

**ACT THREE**

_Captain's starlog, March 29th, 2158. On Commander T'Pol's recommendation, we're en route to the Xanthan homeworld where we … where Enterprise encountered Rajiin the first time. I'm not sure how much info we'll be able to obtain about her from there although I seem to recall the Oran'taku world is only a light year or so distant. While I haven't yet ruled out visiting that planet, on the advice of my senior officers, we're holding off going there for the time being._

* * *

><p>He was beginning to regret this.<p>

It had been his idea to accompany the latest shuttlepod sweep, despite the growing sense of futility, and Trip Tucker silently wondered if this entire expedition was going to ever reveal anything but wiped out planetary cultures or destroyed starships. Upon their arrival in-system, T'Pol had instantly detected the presence of dozens scrapped hulls, all bearing indications of an intense space battle. Unlike previous instances, though, the battle of the Xanthan system had evidently included quite a number of different species – in addition to the eponymous Xindi starships, most of which were Arboreal or Primate, there were several Ikaaran vessels, a trio of Illyrian transports, and even an Osaarian merchant tug. The remains of at least six other ships of unknown origin filled the space around the waterworld and, from T'Pol's preliminary scan, nearly five times that number had been completely destroyed.

None of the floating bazaars that had dotted the planet escaped damage and most had completely vanished underneath the waves, though there were large sections that remained relatively intact. Their hails went unanswered – it honestly looked like there was no one alive _to _answer them – but Trip ordered additional sensor sweeps and close surface scans that could only be handled by shuttlepods. He knew that the likelihood of them finding even a single survivor was so remote that it might as well be no chance at all, but he just felt the need to do something.

Anything.

Shortly after the first wave of scans were complete and they had an even better grasp of the sheer scope of damage, Phlox had discreetly complimented him on the use of psychology – according to the doctor, this subtle attempt to cement in the minds of the crew what might happen to Earth if they lost the war was most effective. Unfortunately, Commander Eisler had also been present and he had promptly added his own congratulations on what he called an 'excellent psyop campaign.'

Trip had very nearly thrown them both off the bridge.

Disgusted, both at them and at himself – while that wasn't the _only _reason he wanted _Endeavour _to linger, Trip would be a liar if he said the thought hadn't crossed his mind – Tucker had exercised his command authority to overrule Eisler's standing orders and joined the last shuttlepod sweep. He'd intended to be as alone with his thoughts as possible, but that turned out to be nearly impossible, in between Warrant Officer Gray refusing to let him fly one of the 'pods because his certification had expired and Rick's choice of Roughneck escort. T'Pol knew that he was uncomfortable around CPO Fernandez, but so far, she hadn't figured out that the chief petty officer simply reminded Trip entirely too much of Natalie for him to even look at the woman for longer than a few moments without feeling a cold shiver crawl up his back. They had the same hair style, same facial structure, and even the same last name! There was no actual familial relationship – Trip was embarrassed to admit that he'd actually checked when Rick first shanghaied the woman from the _Telemachus _– but the similarities were just so spooky that it freaked him out.

"Commencing final sensor sweep," Lieutenant Commander Mayweather declared from the pilot's station of the 'pod. She'd been passing by the launch bay when Trip had been arguing with Gray – seriously, the former Roughneck's combat promotion to warrant officer had clearly gone straight to his head; Trip was the captain, dammit, which meant he shouldn't have to put up with this kind of nonsense – and had surprisingly volunteered to fly the 'pod. Gray had been recalcitrant with her too, but had eventually relented when she demanded he point out the regulation that forbade _her_ from piloting a shuttle.

"Nothing," Trip said as he studied the sensor feed from the navigator's console. "Not a damned thing."

"Except water," Mayweather agreed. She shook her head in disgust. "Doesn't look a thing like the pictures Travis sent us…" Trip blinked – he always forgot that she was Travis' sister, what with her general standoffishness, although she _had _opened up quite a bit in the last few weeks. He'd seen her eating with Hoshi a couple of times recently, laughing and joking over stories about her late brother.

"Water, water, every where," Fernandez quoted softly from the back of the 'pod, her voice clearly not intended to be heard. "Nor any drop to drink."

"Just don't shoot the damned albatross," Trip grumbled, ignoring the look that Fernandez shot him. "Take us home, Selina," he ordered with a heavy sigh.

"Aye, sir," Mayweather replied.

They were only minutes away from _Endeavour_ when the comm-line crackled and came alive. For the briefest of seconds, Trip hoped it was a survivor finally responding to their hails with a miraculous tale of how he or she managed to stay alive, but the illusion was shattered almost instantly when an all too familiar voice echoed out of the speakers.

"Shuttlepod One, this is _Endeavour._" Hoshi sounded calm, unflappable, but with a slight undercurrent of excitement in her voice. Trip hit the transmit button on his panel.

"This is Tucker. Go ahead, Hoshi."

"Sir, we've detected a distress signal from an Illyrian ship about two light years out of the system." Even though she couldn't see him, Trip nodded.

"Set a course," he ordered. "We're…"

"Three minutes," Mayweather said in response to his unspoken question.

"Three minutes out," Trip said. "Once we're aboard, break orbit."

"Understood. _Endeavour _out."

It took a little over three days to reach the source of the distress signal, even at warp factor six, and by the time they slowed to impulse, Trip knew that they were about to witness more carnage. T'Pol's scans quickly revealed their destination was the site of yet another space battle, though this one was much smaller in scale than what they'd seen at Xanthan or the Xindi council planet. Only six craft had been involved – five Illyrian transports, all much larger than the one that _Enterprise _had encountered so many years ago, and a single Xindi-Insectoid patrol cruiser – and one of the Illyrian ships was still mostly intact. It was heavily damaged, with its entire hull blackened by particle cannon fire and the engine dark. They were, at best, coasting on maneuvering jets but at least they still had power.

"Life signs?" Trip asked as _Endeavour _crept forward, its weapons systems prepped for action in case this was an ambush.

"Twenty-one," T'Pol replied. "All conform to known readings for Illyrians." She frowned. "Their warp core is offline." Trip grimaced at the flood of memories that came on the heels of the simple comment. As far as he knew, Starfleet had never been able to find out what happened to the Illyrian ship that _Enterprise _had boarded…

_Stop it,_ he told himself. _If we hadn't acted, Earth could have been destroyed._

It was an excuse, a valid one that he knew to be completely accurate, but still, the very thought of their actions made him sick to his stomach. He wondered how Jon was able to live with himself. Sometimes, he wondered how he managed to live with himself.

"Open a channel," Trip began but Hoshi spoke over him.

"Incoming transmission," she announced. "Audio and visual." Trip nodded and she flipped a switch that activated the main viewer. The female Illyrian who appeared looked to be exhausted, wounded and just a little shell-shocked.

"…please respond. This is Illyrian vessel _Grace of Fire_ to unidentified starship. We are not hostile. Do not engage."

"This is Captain Charles Tucker of the Earth ship, _Endeavour_," Trip said. "We're here to help."

"Earth ship?" the Illyrian woman repeated with a hopeful expression. "Captain Lorian?" Trip inhaled sharply, even as T'Pol visibly flinched and Hoshi turned wide eyes on him.

"No," Trip said softly, "Captain Lorian isn't with us." He swallowed a thick lump in his throat and concentrated on appearing captainly. "We're standing by to render aid."

It took less than ten minutes for Anna's engineering team to determine that the _Grace of Fire's _warp core was a lost cause. Microfractures were everywhere and none of the injectors looked like they could handle the stress of even warp one. From just the brief glance he'd given the core, Trip was astounded that they hadn't suffered a catastrophic breach and he wasn't sure if the design saved their lives or if it was just dumb luck. The Illyrian captain – fourth officer, actually; the captain and his number two had died during the attack by the Xindi-Insectoid ship, and the third-in-command had died during damage control emergency venting – grudgingly agreed to abandon ship and allow _Endeavour _to carry them to their final destination.

"This is twice I owe an Earth ship," she admitted during dinner later that evening. "Your Captain Lorian pulled our ship out of an anomaly a few cycles ago, right before they disappeared entirely." T'Pol raised an eyebrow – she normally disliked these social gatherings and had admitted to barely tolerating them when Jon had forced her to attend, but had decided to join him out of an irrational distrust of Acting-Captain Kandos-Tir, not because the Illyrian woman was untrustworthy but because she was a non-human female and, according to T'Pol, he had an exceedingly bad record in that regard.

Trip had laughed outright at the statement.

"Indeed?" T'Pol said, no sign of her thoughts in her voice or on her face. "How soon before they ended?" she asked.

"It was a few solar days," Kandos-Tir said with a smile. Trip glanced at T'Pol and their eyes met. It was little more than circumstantial evidence – the incident could have been before they encountered Lorian … but it could have also been _after _their trip through the subspace corridor.

"You have his ears," Acting-Captain Kandos-Tir said abruptly. "Are you related to him?"

"I am," T'Pol replied. She hesitated, clearly unsure how to proceed.

"His daughter," Trip offered quickly. Kandos-Tir's face lit up with a smile even as T'Pol shot him a sour look that caused him to shrug. Honestly, would anyone believe that she was Lorian's mother?

"When you look upon him again," the Illyrian said brightly, "you must thank him for me."

"I shall … do my best," T'Pol said.

Naturally, the conversation turned to the circumstances that the _Grace of Fire _found itself in and Trip listened with growing despair as Kandos-Tir outlined the depredations of the Xindi-Insectoids and Xindi-Reptilians in their ongoing civil war. With the dissolution of the thermobaric clouds that made the Delphic Expanse so dangerous, the two were no longer restrained from making a grab for power. First, they had united to crush the military forces of their fellow Xindi, starting with a surprise attack on the Aquatics that crippled their more powerful cousins. After that, the Arboreals and the Primates were easy to pick off, and, within a matter of months, the only rivals the Insectoid and Reptilians faced in the Expanse were each other.

So naturally, they started fighting.

Entire worlds were ravaged by the brutal engagements – Kandos-Tir knew firsthand about the virtual extermination of the Ikaaran race as she and the _Grace of Fire _had narrowly escaped a Reptilian battle fleet when it arrived at the Ikaaran homeworld to assault an Insectoid outpost that had been forcibly imposed upon the natives of that world. Xanthan had, for a time, been neutral space, with at least twelve different species rallying to defend it. Unfortunately, when they mistakenly allowed Xindi-Arboreal and Primate refugees to land on one of the commerce bazaars, the Insectoids attacked, using the decision as flimsy excuse for conquest.

"We were en route to Xanthan with the hopes of finding survivors," Kandos-Tir said glumly, "but the patrol cruiser attacked and our defenses were not sufficient."

Trip was silent for a long moment as he digested the new information. At his side, T'Pol was staring at her now empty plate, her lips pursed slightly and her eyes narrowed. She glanced up to meet his gaze and Tucker inhaled slowly.

"Tell me about these Xindi refugees," he said.

Silence answered him.

=/\= =/\= =/\=

He longed for silence.

A far distant chime echoed through the mountain of Gol, each deep note perfectly timed to begin at exactly the instant that the previous one faded away. Though they were never seen by the public, the acolytes responsible for the sounds were more than simply diligent in their duties; it was a widely known fact that those seeking to attain _kolinahr _relied upon the ringing of the ancient chimes to focus their minds and purge all emotion. No matter the day or hour, the gongs were an eternal constant that never ceased or paused, a steady, rhythmic sound that a deeply buried part of him likened it to a pulse.

Vulcan's heartbeat.

His muscles protested as he rose to his feet from the stone floor where he had been kneeling in meditation, but Soval ignored the discomfort as he adjusted the outer robe that identified him as a member of T'Pau's government. His was a new position, created especially for him and with a carefully phrased mandate that alternately confused and impressed. Only a select few understood what it was that Sub-Minister Soval did and, at times, his level of authority seemed excessive for one without a clearly defined role. On one day, he appeared to represent Internal Security, while on another he was with defense, and yet another he seemed to answer to Transportation, but most of his race simply perceived him as just another bureaucrat to be mollified until he went away and life returned to normal. This was completely intentional, of course, and Soval was once more impressed by T'Pau's level of competency. Obfuscation, it turned out, was not just a diplomat's tool – it was a governmental agency.

This visit to Gol had been an unscheduled one that accomplished several objectives at once, which, with his limited free time was always a boon. First, and quite possibly most important, it gave Soval the opportunity to avoid another pointless meeting with the Earth ambassador. A career politician with his eye on advancement, Thomas Vanderbilt had no business acting as a representative for his culture. Despite having been on Vulcan for three years, he had yet to learn how to temper his passions or reign in his emotions. Even Archer had come to realize that raising one's voice when opposed did not impress humanity's oldest ally. Still, Vanderbilt was of sufficient intelligence that conversing with him was not like speaking to rocks, which Soval had to admit was how he often felt when talking to other members of EarthGov.

And sadly, he had discovered certain elements of his own government were so obtuse that comparing them to rocks was a grave insult to inanimate stone.

Of secondary importance, although Soval suspected that T'Pau might disagree with his list of priorities, was obtaining a status report on Master Chief Petty Officer Colin Mackenzie, the _Endeavour _crewman who had been telepathically assaulted by _V'tosh ka'tur_ from the _Vahklas_. It was illogical to presume that the female responsible had not been at the very least a Romulan sympathizer; the question that Soval was most interested in was rather simple: had the female – T'Mab, according to the records they had obtained – been Vulcan or was she Rihannsu?

The Initiate-Master responsible for Mackenzie's treatment turned out to be Tavaris' daughter, T'Sai, and Soval admired her grace as she approached. Once, an eternity ago, he had hoped that his son would be mated to this woman and would find the same level of contentment that his parents had discovered with their own marriage, but that dream had been laid to rest alongside the remains of a brilliant, creative child who had died far too early.

"Sub-Minister," T'Sai greeted with subtle inclination of her head. It wasn't a bow or even a nod like the humans were so fond of, but rather a simple gesture of acknowledgement that they were equals. Soval lifted his hand, fingers automatically spreading in the traditional _ta'al._

"Live long and prosper, Lady T'Sai," he intoned. She returned the gesture smoothly, but from her body language, he could tell that she was exhausted.

"You have come to ask about the human, Mackenzie," she said, mispronouncing the master chief petty officer's name.

"I have," Soval replied, deciding against correcting her.

"The damage wrought by T'Mab has been corrected," the Initiate-Master declared. "I have released him to quarters where he is resting." She narrowed her eyes. "But I suspect you are less concerned about his well-being than you are about the secrets he may have uncovered." Soval's lips twitched and he fought down the urge to smirk.

"You are truly your father's child," he said wryly. T'Sai's right eyebrow climbed a centimeter and Soval quickly realized that she might perceive an insult where none was intended. He opened his mouth to continued, but T'Sai spoke first.

"There is no offense," she quoted calmly, "where none is intended. I thank you for the compliment." A moment later, she continued, her tone brisk and her eyes hooded. "The human does not have sufficient information to link T'Mab and those who followed S'task."

"Do not underestimate humanity," Soval warned her. "They are more intelligent than they may appear."

"Of this, I am aware," T'Sai said. She paused for a moment. "I do not believe that T'Mab was of S'task's Flock," she admitted. "The flavor of her thoughts … she was Lost to us, yes, and without logic, but nothing of what she left behind in the human's mind indicates anything but one who had abandoned the true path and unwisely sought to follow in the footsteps of the Adepts of T'Pel." Soval inhaled sharply – even now, centuries after they had departed Vulcan, the Adepts were still remembered. An order of assassins, their founder had been rumored to be Surak's blood and they had twisted his teachings into something abhorrent. "It would not be logical to presume that she was operating without their sanction, but I do not believe she was Rihannsu."

"You do not appear surprised that our cousins have returned," Soval said after a few seconds of silence. T'Sai raised an eyebrow.

"Should I be?" she asked. A different gong sounded, though somehow, in a way that Soval could not possibly fathom, it neither overpowered the steadier, softer chime, nor clashed with it in any way. Instead, the second tone merged with the first and _became _the same sound, all the while adding a difference that was both unmistakable and aesthetically pleasing. "My duties summon," T'Sai said as Soval was admiring the acoustics and expertise that were at work. "If you require additional information," she continued briskly but without rush, "I will make myself available, Sub-Minister." She raised her hand to salute. "We are here to serve," she said.

"Your service honors us, Lady T'Sai," Soval replied instantly as he returned the _ta'al_.

A moment later, she was gone.

The muscles in his back chose that moment to begin protesting and Soval bit back a frustrated sigh that would have no doubt revealed how close he was to an actual emotional display. His head ached as he slowly retraced his steps to the landing platforms. Already, more questions were crowding into his awareness and forcing him to re-evaluate his next step. If Mackenzie remained ignorant of the link, that was fortunate, but the master chief petty officer would likely return to service aboard _Endeavour _once T'Sai declared him fit, which would place him in close proximity to Commander T'Pol. She was, at the best of times, a frighteningly intelligent woman who would need only a few pieces of the puzzle to realize that something was amiss. And if T'Pol became aware of the Romulan-Vulcan connection, it was logical to presume that Captain Tucker would know shortly thereafter. He would tell Archer and then?

This time, Soval _did _allow himself to sigh.

He was barely three steps beyond the entrance to the _kolinahr _complex when he became aware of eyes upon him. Pausing in mid-step, Soval surveyed the landing pad with cautious eyes, his muscles tensing in the event that another assassination attempt was likely even though he suspected that to be improbable. Since his intervention against those that sought to murder T'Pau at Surak's Tomb, there had been no additional attempts on his life, no matter that, at his direction, specialist commando teams continued to engage citizens deemed to be potential threats to Vulcan stability. When his fell upon a familiar figure, he blinked in surprise.

"Live long and prosper, Sub-Minister," Citizen Koss said as he approached. Soval examined him carefully, noting immediately that the younger man had shed a considerable amount of weight. Koss' clothes hung loosely around him and the haggard expression on his face implied that this was more a result of stress than of a dedicated exercise regimen. "May I have a moment of your time?" Koss inquired. When Soval began to prevaricate, Koss spoke once more. "I have become aware that you are conducting an internal investigation into subversive elements within our society," he said. It was said with a certainty that was mildly troublesome and Soval nearly clung to his cover story until he noticed something about the younger man.

Koss was terrified.

It was not immediately obvious, but having only recently been hunted himself, Soval instantly recognized the signs. Koss appeared to be hyper-aware of his surroundings, visibly reacting to sounds and movements that were slightly out of the norm, regardless of the source. His eyes never stopped moving and his entire body seemed poised on the verge of motion.

"You are well informed," Soval said slowly. "For an architect, that is," he added.

"Becoming informed has become necessary," Koss replied. After a moment of consideration, Soval nodded.

"Come with me," he ordered. He turned away without another word and was unsurprised when the architect fell into step behind him.

"_Jolan'tru_, Sub-Minister," the commando standing guard at the shuttle said in greeting and Soval could feel Koss immediately tense. Recognition flickered across the architect's face and was instantly noticed by the commando. Soval gave him a discreet hand gesture – _do not engage_, he instructed with little more than a wave of his hand – and Major Tanis responded with a subtle disapproving flare of his nostrils. The use of the Romulan greeting, obtained through means Soval preferred not to think about, was one of their many tools: a Vulcan who had never interacted with their lost cousins would likely react in confusion as the phrase meant nothing in their native tongue, but a dissident or an actual Rihannsu operative would invariably respond, whether by returning the greeting or by growing more wary.

That Koss reacted as he did placed him in very dangerous company.

"You have your moment," Soval said once they were airborne. He was unconcerned about their flight plan: Tanis was an exceptional pilot and his loyalty was without question; melding with the commando was one of the very first things Soval when the former Syrannite was assigned to him by Minister T'Pau.

"I have been conducting an independent investigation into the activities of my family," Koss began, his eyes grim, "and have discovered a number of … troubling links to numerous seditious activities." Soval quirked an eyebrow and Koss continued. "You are aware of my short-lived marriage?"

"I am," Soval said carefully. T'Pol's brief union with this man had long been a source of speculation on his part as very little of the circumstances seemed logical. That Koss brought it up at all seemed a calculated attempt to further personalize his dire circumstances since Soval's professional relationship with _Endeavour's _first officer was common knowledge. It was a masterfully logical stroke.

"What you are likely unaware of," Koss added, "is that I pressured T'Pol into marriage against the wishes of my father." Soval raised an eyebrow at that – he had been certain that it was the other way around – and Koss exhaled deeply, his exhaustion becoming more obvious. "I was quite fond of Professor T'Les during my time at the Science Academy," he said, "and felt that the marriage was the only way to protect her." Abruptly, Koss looked away, his control faltering ever so briefly. "My father was quite … displeased that I would press the matter with T'Pol, particularly since it was quite obvious that her interests were directed … elsewhere, and it was following the bonding ceremony that I became convinced that he – my father – was actually responsible for the allegations against Professor T'Les." Soval remained silent and Koss continued. "I shared my concerns with the professor prior to her decision to join the Syrannites," he said with a tight frown. "After her death," he said, "my father made several comments to some of his associates that I took as threats toward my wife…"

"Which is why you released her from the marriage," Soval guessed.

"Yes," Koss said. "I continued to investigate my family afterward, but as you are aware, I am simply an architect." His lips tightened. "I have neither the skills nor the talent to conduct an efficient and covert investigation of this magnitude." Soval gave Tanis a quick glance, noting with well-hidden pleasure that the commando was discreetly inputting new search parameters into their computer system, all aimed toward corroborating Koss' tale. "I attempted to make contact with my former spouse for assistance," the architect added, "but I either misjudged the level of … antipathy she harbors toward me or my attempts at being circumspect were more successful than I anticipated. In either case, she has not responded."

"May I presume that you have no solid proof?" Soval inquired. It was the logical explanation for Koss' decision to come forward and he was unsurprised when the architect's shoulders sagged.

"You may," he admitted. "I have observed documents and overheard conversations that link my parents to certain elements of the former government of Administrator V'Las, but have been unable to obtain copies of them for your examination."

"I see." Soval leaned back in his acceleration seat and studied the individual in front of him. Everything Koss had told him was, on the surface, completely circumstantial – without any actionable evidence, there was little Soval could do apart from continue his observation of the family in question. Despite his better judgment, though, he had to admit that Koss' story carried with it the ring of truth. He glanced once more to Tanis who nodded in unspoken agreement. "Tell me everything," Soval ordered. "Leave nothing out."

"You believe me?" Koss asked, hope appearing in his eyes.

"I do," Soval replied simply.

And at those words, Koss visibly relaxed.

=/\= =/\= =/\=

He was completely and utterly relaxed.

Around him, the rest of the bridge crew were in varying states of worry, with at least two bordering on absolute panic, but to Dan Hsiao, the entire situation felt like just another day at the office. In his opinion, it was really quite simple: they were all ultimately doomed anyway so why get worked up over the specifics of how they would die? Hell, even the Vulcans got it: _in accepting the inevitable_, one of their maxims went, _one finds peace._

Dan had found peace a long time ago.

Currently, _Hyperion _was creeping into the Zeta 1 Reticuli system – better known as Acheron – at speeds only a little faster than Dan's last car. He'd only briefly considered taking the warp core offline, knowing that it would make them more difficult to detect, but decided that the negatives simply outweighed the positive. The very last thing he wanted in the event that there were a fleet of Rommies lurking in-system was to be unable to go to warp.

As was his habit, he was standing in front of his command chair rather than sitting in it. Although he often complained that it wasn't very comfortable, the truth of the matter was that he just preferred to be on his feet. Not only did this mean he could look over the shoulder of his helmsman, a cute ensign who had a tendency to mutter under her breath when she was concentrating, but it also allowed him get a better feel for _Hyperion. _Sure, some of his officers probably believed he was a little crazy when he claimed to know that the maneuvering thrusters were acting up or the impulse manifold was a little wobbly but so far, he'd been right every time and that was all that really mattered.

"Anything on the sensors?" he asked, directing his question to the dark-skinned junior lieutenant manning the science board.

"No, sir," Lieutenant Tariq Nadir replied. Dan nodded in understanding – they'd been running silent for most of the trip and passive scans weren't exactly known for their accuracy. Still, even without active sensors, they'd been able to tell that the Romulans had so thoroughly nuked what was left of the Acheron colony that Hsiao suspected it was still glowing.

"Okay," he said with a slight frown. "Light 'em up. Go active."

"Is that a good idea?" Marie Devereux asked from the communications station. Hsiao had been more than a little surprised when Admiral Archer assigned her to _Hyperion _following Lieutenant Watt's promotion and reassignment – Dan hadn't even known Marie was on Earth! – and the long voyage had been complicated as hell. This was a perfect example: she was accustomed to being his equal, not his subordinate, and had an unfortunate tendency to question his orders in front of everyone. As far as he could tell, it wasn't malicious on her part, but each time it happened, Dan had to fight the urge to snap at her.

Of course, it probably didn't help that he knew what she looked like naked, especially since his brain tended to skip straight to that part of his memory whenever he looked at her.

"Make it so, Lieutenant," Hsiao instructed, not bothering to answer Devereux. He gave her a quick, sidelong look that hopefully conveyed a firm 'stop it,' before turning his full attention to Lieutenant Karl Anthony, his tactical officer. A bear of a man, Anthony had reputedly retired from Starfleet at the rank of chief petty officer before the war began and had been aboard a Boomer ship at Thor's Cradle. "Go to condition red," Dan ordered.

Long seconds crept by as they waited for the inevitable Romulan assault – the instant Nadir began sweeping the system with active sensors, they were announcing their presence to any ship in the system – but no attack came. Dan collapsed in the command chair and leaned forward, cupping his chin with one hand while he tapped the armrest with the other.

"No sign of Romulan ships, sir," Lieutenant Nadir announced. "Reading … debris from Starfleet vessels and Romulan drones … no encroachments." Hsiao grunted and his eyes drifted to Marie. Instinctively, she glanced up from her board and met his gaze.

Dan looked away.

"I've got something!" Nadir suddenly declared. "It's weak … but it's definitely a power signature of some kind."

"Where?" Hsiao demanded. On the main viewer, a flashing red bracket appeared atop one of the numerous small moons orbiting one of the gas giants on the outer fringes of the system. Dan was about to order it magnified when Nadir zoomed in.

And as one, the command crew inhaled with surprise.

"A bird of prey," Anthony breathed. "And it looks mostly intact…"

"Confirm no encroachments," Dan snapped, fighting to keep his excitement under control. Admiral Archer had ordered him to poke around the system and see what the Rommies were up to, but if they could come back with an intact bird of prey? He shivered.

"Scanning," Nadir stated. For long moments, the whir of his sensor board and the distant hum of the warp core was the only sound. "Confirmed," the science officer said. "No other sensor contacts detected." Dan inhaled, then nodded.

"Take us in, Ensign Nguyen," he ordered. "Let's go take a look."

The bird of prey was in remarkable condition, with only a single nacelle missing. A trio of undetonated Mark VI torpedoes were lodged in its hull, but what had ultimately killed the ship was the gaping hole that pierced straight through the engineering deck. It was a miracle that there hadn't been a core breach when the warship suffered the damage in the first place, but based on just an external examination, it seemed likely that the catastrophic loss of oxygen and pressure had killed most of the crew instantly.

Despite Anthony's complaints, Dan accompanied the initial security team as they transported down to the bird of prey. They materialized inside the ruined engineering deck, phase pistols at the ready. With much of the ship still exposed to vacuum, EV suits were necessary and that made a more in-depth investigation slow going. By the time Dan's suit beeped at him, warning that he'd reached danger levels in terms of his oxygen supply, he and the three security teams had swept the Romulan ship from bow to stern.

"Our sensors are having difficulty penetrating its hull," Nadir said once Dan returned to _Hyperion _and gathered his command officers for a discussion about their options.

"I noticed," Hsiao retorted. "Even the handhelds aren't too useful down there." He glanced at Marie – she was at the far end of the situation table. "Comms weren't very reliable either."

"Don't blame me," Devereux replied. "We boosted output to over two hundred percent and you were still coming in choppy."

"Locator beacons would be a good idea," Lieutenant Anthony interjected. He tapped the table's screen which was displaying the rudimentary deckplan they'd cobbled together for the bird of prey. "If we set up a string of relays along these corridors," he said, "that might amplify both comms and beacons."

"Good idea," Dan said with a nod. "ChEng?" he asked, pronouncing the abbreviation as if it were a single word. Officially, Lieutenant Tammy Gilchrist was the ship's first officer, but there was some continuing confusion over the exact chain of command; by both time in grade and time in service, Marie technically outranked Tammy and the two had butted heads from the instant Devereux came aboard.

"As far as I can tell," Gilchrist said, "both their warp core and their impulse drive are totally shot. If you want this thing to fly, sir, too bad." Dan grinned – one of the things he liked the most about Tammy was her sense of humor. Well, that and her absolutely fantastic ass. "I think we _might _be able to seal off the hull breaches and restore some power to internal systems," she continued. "We might even be able to get life support restored to some sections …" Dan frowned at the way she trailed off.

"Something else?"

"I've been looking over the scans you made," she began. Anthony cleared his throat and Gilchrist gave him a long-suffering look. "The scans you and the security team made," she corrected herself before tapping a few buttons on the situation table. Several locations on the deckplans began flashing. "There are some odd discrepancies in these sections that I can't explain."

"Define odd," Dan said.

"Define discrepancies," Anthony said at the same time.

"Odd as in strange or weird or irregular," Gilchrist said with a smirk, "and discrepancy as in 'I don't know what the hell it means.'" Anthony gave her a sour look and she shrugged. "Look," the engineer said, "I'm guessing with half of these damned systems. If I'm reading this right – and that's a damned big if – there's some weird power consumption going on in these areas that I can't explain."

"A survivor?" Marie offered. Gilchrist shrugged.

"I have no idea," she admitted. "Could be a survivor, could be a system malfunction, hell, it could be just a sensor glitch or the Romulan equivalent of music stuck on repeat. Just thought I'd mention it."

"Lieutenant Anthony," Dan said after a moment, "have your teams do another couple of sweeps in those areas."

"Lot of space to cover, sir," the tactical officer pointed out. "Lot of places to hide if it is a survivor."

"How likely is that anyway?" Marie asked. "It was five months ago…"

"We still know nothing about Romulan physiology," Nadir replied. "They might be able to survive extended periods without food or water."

"Hell," Gilchrist muttered, "they might not even need to breathe."

"Unlikely," Nadir said in response. "The bird of prey appears to have had functioning life support which would indicate a humanoid of some sort."

"There weren't any bodies," Anthony mused. He glanced up and met Dan's eyes. "Not a single one."

"Great," Gilchrist grumbled. "As if I wasn't already freaked out enough."

"Make scanning those sections your top priority," Dan told Anthony before shifting his attention to Gilchrist. "In the meantime," he said, "I want your team working on a way to get that thing off the moon and into orbit." He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to speak. "No excuses," Hsiao said. "I want it aloft and then I want a viable way to tow it back to Earth."

"Right," she said. "No pressure at all."

"Marie," Dan continued, "I want you to prepare a data-dump that we can send back to Starfleet Command. Let's let the Admiralty know what we've got." He pursed his lips. "While you're at it," he said, "coordinate with Engineering to download as much of the Romulan computer core as we can handle – don't worry about translating it. I just want the raw data so we can turn it over to the big brains back on Earth."

"Aye, sir," Devereux replied, no trace of irony or amusement in her voice. Out of the corner of his eye, Hsiao could see that she was looking at him oddly, almost as if she didn't recognize him. He pushed the thought away.

"All right," Dan said sharply. "Let's get to work."

=/\= =/\= =/\=

This wasn't working.

Her skull was on fire and every sound was amplified to the pound that it was physically painful. Lights were too bright, sending sharp, stabbing pains through her brain. All she wanted to do was to find someplace dark and cool where she could curl up and cry. What the hell had she been thinking when she agreed to this? The Vulcans had centuries to figure this whole telepath thing out and they obviously still had problems. Who was she? A single mother of one who just happened to be good with languages. She wasn't a telepath, dammit!

"That's it," Hoshi Sato-Reed announced as she rolled off the bio-bed. "I'm done."

"My scans aren't complete," Phlox began, but Hoshi shot him a dark look and reached for her uniform jacket.

"I have too much work to do to be wasting time on this," she said sharply. Phlox harrumphed and, to her disgust, continued to point the hand scanner in her direction.

"We are quite close to a baseline, Commander," he said with a slight smile. "A few more tests and …"

"And what?" Hoshi demanded. "Am I suddenly going to be able to read minds?" She snorted. "That isn't exactly something I'm interested in!" Phlox blinked, probably more at her tone than her words, and lowered his scanner as he gave her another long, weighing look. Hoshi shifted awkwardly. "What?"

"Ah," the doctor said softly. "Forgive me." He put the scanner down. "How are you handling our current mission?" he asked unexpectedly. Hoshi stared at him in confusion.

"I'm fine," she said hesitantly.

"Are you?" Phlox's smile was fleeting and sad. "We are only days away from having Xindi aboard," he pointed out and the simple statement caused Hoshi to flinch. Phlox nodded. "I know you still have many unresolved feelings toward them…"

"Toward the Reptilians," Hoshi correctly tightly. She frowned. "Is this an intervention?"

"Does it need to be?" Phlox countered. He gave her another sad smile. "Captain Tucker has been struggling with his own unresolved feelings," he said, "but unlike you, he has an intimate companion to assist him with overcoming those feelings." Hoshi inhaled sharply, not because of the doctor's words, but because she realized that she hadn't thought about Malcolm all day.

Not even once.

"I can't do this right now," she said softly. The urge to get away from Sickbay, away from the dark memories threatening to resurface, was too intense to be denied.

"I understand," Phlox replied. "I am here if you need me," he said simply. Hoshi nodded.

And then, she fled.

Left alone with her thoughts, Hoshi was disgusted to realize she could not remember exactly what Malcolm sounded like anymore. He had been gone for a just a little over two years now, and already, he was disappearing from her life. Their son barely looked like him – which was a good thing, both Stuart and Trip had joked, but it made her more than a little sad – and the only other thing she still had of him were a few still photographs, a couple of handwritten letters, and memories that were fading more every day. It wasn't fair.

She found the gymnasium mostly deserted – with most of the security personnel Commander Eisler had taken from the three _Daedalus_-classes no longer aboard, everyone was able to go back to regular workout schedules and Hoshi no longer had to fight for a machine – and dialed the treadmill up to a punishing pace. By the fifth kilometer, her legs were already howling but she kept on running.

Anna Hess entered the gym shortly after Hoshi hit the twenty kilometer mark, and Sato immediately noticed that the engineer's mood was as dark as it had been at the morning command briefing. In the last three weeks, Hoshi could count on one hand the number of times she'd seen Anna _really _smile – interestingly enough, they were all when Hess was in the presence of Rick Eisler – but lately … lately, it seemed like Anna was so distracted and depressed over something that it hurt to even be in the same room with her.

"Hey," Hess said by way of greeting as she climbed onto the treadmill next to Hoshi's and began warming up.

"Everything okay?" Hoshi asked. Anna grimaced and shook her head.

"Not even close," she replied. They ran in relative silence for a few minutes – Hess was still warming up while Hoshi was cooling down – when Hess abruptly gave her a sidelong look. "You were with Reed for a while before Elysium, weren't you?" she asked. Hoshi stumbled and Anna flinched. "I'm sorry," she said quickly. "That was … it was … dammit."

"Anna, what's wrong?" Hoshi stepped off the treadmill and grabbed her towel. She glanced around – there was no one else in the gym – and stepped around to the front of the Hess' machine so she could make eye contact.

"How did you convince him?" Anna asked, her eyes suddenly bright. "I mean … I knew Reed. He had a major stick up his ass about regs and fraternization regs, but somehow, you got him to unbend." She glowered at the wall. "I can't even get Rick to _talk _to me anymore," she muttered.

And just like that, it fell into place.

Hoshi bit her lower lip and once more wished Travis was alive. They'd had a long-running – and secret, of course – wager over Anna Hess' sexual preference, and this revelation only seemed to confirm Hoshi's theory that the engineer was bi. Mayweather had been thoroughly convinced that Anna 'batted for the other team' as he put it, and Sato had often wondered if he only thought that way because Hess had shot him down. Still, her curiosity got the better of her and Hoshi was speaking before she thought it through.

"Rumor has it," she said, "that you weren't into men."

"That's true for most of 'em," Anna said. "The ones actually worth your time don't waste it trying to get into your pants." Sato snickered at the comment. "Made things easier early in my career if my superiors thought I was gay," Hess added. She slapped the emergency stop button on the treadmill and hopped off, her expression still dark.

"So," Hoshi remarked. "Commander Eisler, huh?" Anna glared.

"That jackass gets my motor running and doesn't even know he's doing it," she complained. "I remember the first time I had to go through decon with him," she said suddenly, her lips curving up into an unwilling smile. "He's standing there, applying that stupid gel to his chest and all I could think of was that I wanted to lick every one of his scars." Anna abruptly shook her head. "I've got it bad, Hoshi," she said, "and I don't have a goddamned clue what to do."

"You could do what I did," Hoshi said with a smirk. "Attack. Don't trust him to make the first move – he's a guy and will probably screw it up – so be proactive. Knock on his door at oh-dark-thirty and don't give him the opportunity to say no." She smiled. "And from what I've seen," she added, "the commander wouldn't turn you down even if you _did_ give him the chance." To her surprise, Anna's shoulders slumped.

"You don't know him as well as you think you do," she said as she grabbed her towel and turned away. As she walked away, her body language screamed defeat, which made no sense. Hoshi briefly considered pursuing her and asking more questions – it was pretty obvious that Anna knew some dark secret about the tactical officer – but quickly discarded the idea. If Hess wanted to talk more, she knew where to find her.

"Good luck," Hoshi whispered in the direction of the chief engineer before discreetly making her exit.

Hess' romantic woes weren't exactly unique aboard _Endeavour. _Excluding the captain and the first officer – whom most crewmembers believed were still involved but weren't sure since they didn't have the inside scoop like she did – Hoshi knew of at least a half dozen illicit relationships off the top of her head. There was Lieutenant Rostova and Senior Chief Luckabaugh, Lieutenants Zhao and Rifkin, Doctor Reyes and Chief Warrant Officer Ross … the list just went on and on. It wasn't really a surprise, though; wartime romances were the stuff of stories and with their jobs, any day could be their last. Most seemed to fizzle out fairly quickly – Reyes and Ross, for example, were pretty obviously on the verge of a permanent break, and Zhao was getting frustrated with Rifkin's inability to commit – and Hoshi had observed several former couples struggling to cope with one another. Generally, the 'avoid unless duty requires it' principle seemed to be in place, but there were actually a couple of instances where open hostility had replaced a previously solid working partnership.

Which was, Hoshi suspected, the reason Starfleet tried to forbid such relationships in the first place.

Unlike the gym, the mess was filled nearly to capacity. After getting a salad and water, Hoshi finally found an empty spot at a table whose sole occupant was the ordinance officer. From her brief interactions with Lieutenant Kimura, she'd found him to be polite, reserved and extraordinarily quiet. During their trip to _Endeavour _aboard the _Ni'Var_, Kimura had unintentionally scared her numerous times thanks to his unconscious stealth.

"Good evening, Lieutenant," she greeted, nodding toward the empty seat. "Do you mind if I join you?"

"Not at all, ma'am," Kimura replied quickly. He set aside the PADD that he'd been studying.

"Interesting reading?" Hoshi asked. The lieutenant smirked slightly.

"I think so," he said as he slid the storage device to her. Hesitantly, Hoshi tapped the ON button. The PADD lit up instantly and she smiled at the title.

_Tactical Applications of Ship-Based Grapplers_ by Lieutenant Commander Malcolm Reed.

It was one of the numerous position papers that Malcolm had authored while serving aboard_Enterprise_, and Hoshi remembered how surprised she'd been that he actually _wrote_ such things. His style was so evocative of who he was: to the point, wry, and more brilliant than he initially appeared. Shaking her head, she pushed the PADD back to Lieutenant Kimura.

"I've read all of the commander's tactical dissertations," the lieutenant said. "My … my wife used to tease me that I had a man-crush on him." Hoshi sipped from her glass and considered how to best proceed. From Kimura's tone and body language as well as his use of past tense, it was obvious that his wife had passed away. It was obviously fairly recently as well because the lieutenant immediately looked away and clenched his jaw. She wet her lips.

"How did she die?" she asked softly. Kimura exhaled deeply and his eyes turned inward.

"She was aboard _Atlantis _at Acheron," he said. "That's where we met, actually. I was serving under Captain Ebadi and Trish was the gamma shift nav officer." He frowned. "Hard to believe it's already been five months…"

"You were on _Atlantis?_" Hoshi asked. He shook his head.

"Not at Acheron, no ma'am. Command had rotated me back to Earth to complete the new ordinance delivery system training." His expression soured. "So I was in a stupid classroom, listening to an instructor describe how to repair a Mark Six torpedo when she died." Hoshi gave him an understanding look.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Sometimes," she admitted softly, "I think it's harder to be the ones left behind." She offered him a wan smile. "They're not suffering anymore." Lieutenant Kimura considered her comment for a moment.

"I don't know if I believe in an afterlife, ma'am," he said slowly, "but I hope you're right."

"So do I," Hoshi said before forcing down another surge of despair. It was moments like this that she missed Malcolm the most. "So," she said with false cheer, "tell me about your wife."

The lieutenant smiled. And began to talk.


	5. Act Four

**ACT FOUR**

_Captain's starlog, April 12th, 2158. We're an hour out from our rendezvous with Xindi refugees. Commander Eisler still doesn't like this plan – hell, I don't like this plan – but we've been in the Expanse for three months now and still haven't accomplished a damned thing. I'm hoping that this meeting will clear some things up and put us on the right track. If not, we're back to square one…_

* * *

><p>She was tired of talking.<p>

"I don't care, Riggs," Anna Hess said in response to a complaint her second-in-command had offered. Officially, his title was Main Propulsion Assistant, but on days like this, Hess mentally promoted Lieutenant Commander Carlos Riggs to 'number one pain in the ass.' "I'm tired of repeating myself. Just get it done."

There were over forty ships in the Xindi refugee fleet, most of Primate design, but with a single, badly damaged Aquatic heavy cruiser and more than a dozen Arboreal vessels of varying designs. Over the last week and a half, Anna's engineering staff had been run ragged thanks to the captain's decision to render aid to the ragtag survivors, and she'd personally headed up at least ten separate damage assessment and/or repair teams in what looked to be a futile cause. By her estimates, the Xindi fleet had a month, maybe two at best before lack of maintenance, fuel and general damage grounded them permanently.

Sadly, Trip either seemed to disagree with her or the captain's pips he wore had stripped him of common sense.

"This thing is a piece of shit, Anna," Riggs grumbled, as if he hadn't already said the same thing a hundred times since they'd come aboard the Aquatic cruiser to make another patch job on the ship's main impulse drive. Hess gave him a frustrated look.

"Do you think I don't know that?" she snapped. "Do you think the _captain _doesn't know it?" Riggs looked away, but Anna continued. "Yes, this thing belongs on the scrap heap, but we've been given a job, so shut the hell up and do it!"

She stormed away from him – not exactly an easy feat in a watery environment – and desperately wished that she didn't have to wear a stupid environment suit. Right now, she very much wanted to squeeze the bridge of her nose or at least wipe some of the sweat out of her eyes. What kind of screwed up aliens lived in water this warm in the first place?

"_Endeavour _to Commander Hess." The comm-line crackled and popped and hissed, but Hoshi's voice was easily understandable, and Anna angrily stabbed the button on her hardened wrist computer to transmit.

"This is Hess," she said sharply.

"_Endeavour _Actual is requesting a status report on your repairs," Hoshi said and Anna imagined that she could hear an apologetic tone in the operations officer's voice.

"Kindly inform _Endeavour _Actual," Hess replied through clenched teeth, "that my team is working as fast as is _humanly_ possible in an alien environment." Out of the corner of her eye, Anna could see the other members of the DC party glance in her direction and realized that she was transmitting on an open line. Mentally, she shrugged. What was the worst that Trip could do? Demote her? Make her work twenty hour days? Order her to wear something absurdly uncomfortable for ridiculous lengths of time? "If _Endeavour_Actual would stop wasting my team asking for status reports he knows I can't give to him," she continued tightly, "we _might _be able to actually get some work done." Hoshi cleared her throat, probably to tell Hess that the entire command staff could hear her, but Anna was on a roll and the frustration that had been bubbling within her stomach washed away her internal dialogue filter. "Further," she said in an even harder tone, "if_Endeavour _Actual is displeased with the speed at which our repairs are being completed, then kindly advise him that he's neither crippled nor incompetent so he should get off his lazy ass and come show us what we're obviously doing wrong. There's an extra environment suit waiting for him in storage if he can remember how to put it on." When Hoshi responded a long, silent heartbeat later, she sounded like she was fighting to keep from laughing.

"Understood, Commander," she said.

"Hess out," Anna growled before stabbing the END button on her wrist-comp. Realizing that far too many of her engineers were staring at her instead of doing their jobs, she glowered. "If I catch any of you slacking off," she said darkly into an open comm-line, "I swear to God, there won't be enough left of you to identify by DNA."

There was a flurry of motion – again, not easy in this stupid water – as they went back to work.

Nearly four hours later, Anna stumbled out of the decon chamber aboard _Endeavour_. Her eyes felt gummy and, even though there had been several layers of protective fabric between her body and the Aquatic's internal water systems, she was convinced that her skin had wrinkled up like a prune. Her headache hadn't abated either and, in fact, had just gotten worse. To her utter lack of surprise, Trip was there waiting for her, his face so utterly devoid of emotion that Hess figured he'd been taking lessons from T'Pol.

"Good job over there, Riggs," she said in an effort to delay the inevitable conversation with Tucker. Her number two nodded in appreciation but gestured toward an equally bedraggled-looking Natasha Rostova.

"This one was all on the lieutenant," he remarked. "Damned fine work, Nat," Riggs added. Rostova flushed – fearless in most situations, she always got flustered when Trip was nearby, which Anna normally found adorable. Not today, though. Today, she just wasn't in the mood to deal with this crap.

"Good work," Hess repeated, this time directing her words to the group of enlisted engineers also emerging from decon. "All of you." She gave Riggs a quick look and he nodded in understanding.

"All right, people," Carlos said, "go get some food and some rack time." He grinned suddenly. "Lieutenant Rostova will post duty schedules in an hour, so check them out before you crash." Rostova's expression fell – she _hated _scheduling, especially since it meant complaints or requests for shift changes came to her – but like a good junior officer, she didn't complain at the extra work unexpectedly dropped in her lap.

"Long day," Trip said once they were alone. Anna sighed and fell into step with him as he gestured toward the turbolift.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Sorry about earlier, by the way." Trip waved it off.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "I've had those kinds of days too. I shouldn't have been pestering you for reports but …" He grimaced and scratched the back of his neck. "Jannar and Naara have been bothering me…"

"So you decided to share the frustration?" Anna asked wryly. "Nice one, Boss."

"My grandma always said that a burden shared is a burden halved." Tucker's smile looked forced. "How well will it travel?" he asked. Hess blew out a breath.

"The Aquatic ship?" she asked. He nodded as he hit the summons button for the turbolift. "Not well and not long. The whole thing is about to come apart at the seams." Anna rolled her head around, exhaling in relief at the resulting cracks and pops. "How far are we talking?" she asked.

"North Star," Trip replied, using the code name for the location of the forward operating base. At her glance, he frowned. "Seems they've been running scared for a long time now and I'd like to relocate to someplace that's at least vaguely defensible," he said. The lift doors slid open and he stepped out of the way to let her enter first. "This is apparently all that's really left of them and Jannar is afraid they're on the verge of extinction."

"So it's just a civil war, then?" Anna wondered if not really caring whether the Xindi were wiped out as a species or not made her a bad person. As far as she was concerned, they brought this on themselves when they attacked Earth. So what if those Sphere Builders had been manipulating them? They had free will, right? Just following orders wasn't exactly the best defense for attempted genocide.

"Ethnic cleansing would be more accurate, I think," Tucker said. "The Reptilians and Insectoids only engage in direct conflict when they're backed into a corner and have no other options. They like picking on weaker species but don't like a stand-up fight between equals." The door hissed open again and Trip led the way out.

"Okay." Anna wondered where they were going and realized a long moment later that Trip was angling toward the command center. She sighed. A long, pointless command staff meeting was the very last thing she wanted to do right now, especially since Rick would probably be there and she simply didn't have the strength to deal with him today, not with how he'd been going out of his way to avoid her lately. When they entered, though, Hess was surprised to see that the command center was empty.

"Yes," Tucker said in response to her questioning look, "we _are_ having a command briefing, but not for another ten or twenty minutes." He turned to face her, his expression changing into the one she always thought of as 'Big Brother Trip.' His eyes softened and his entire body language transformed. "I wanted to talk to you first," he said. "You've been on edge for weeks now and I'm starting to get worried."

"I'm fine, sir," Anna started, but Trip interrupted her.

"No," he said flatly, "you're not." Tucker pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek in an expression she recognized as one he used when he was uncomfortable or when he was thinking about to best tell someone they were being _really _stupid. "Is this about Rick?" he asked after a moment. Anna blinked.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked, hating how she sounded slightly out of breath. Good God, she hadn't been _that _obvious, had she? Her face felt like it was on fire.

"I know you're close to him, Anna," Trip said carefully, "and I know about his … condition."

"Oh." Just like that, all of her worries about getting a lecture or, God forbid, _advice _on the non-relationship relationship she had with the tactical officer went out the window. In its place, that ball of ice in her stomach turned to lead. If the captain knew, that meant he'd have to take action and Rick would end up being sidelined. Nothing would kill him faster than that.

"I'm going to be relying on you and Phlox to keep me in the loop about how he's _really_doing," Trip added slowly. His expression soured. "Doesn't seem right," he added, "a guy like Rick getting knocked down by something like this."

"No," Anna murmured, "it isn't fair at all." Her voice was thick with emotion and Tucker gave her a confused look that she completely ignored. "I'll keep you updated, sir," she said, hoping that he would react to her professional tone and respond accordingly. When he did not immediately respond, she glanced around quickly. "What's this briefing for anyway?" she asked.

"T'Pol has been going over the Xindi data," Trip said slowly, his eyes narrowed as he continued to study her, "and coordinating with Councilor Depac and Naara." Tucker shrugged. "They were pretty intense about something, but Jannar wanted me to talk to that Aquatic with the name I can't pronounce so I let her handle it." He looked and sounded pretty sour about his linguistic difficulties, which would have once prompted Anna to tease him – despite his engineering brilliance, Trip had always been embarrassed by his utter inability to pick up other languages; it had taken him six years to become proficient in Vulcan and, from what Hess had been told, he _still _mangled T'Pol's clan name – but today, she was still too tired, too drained, too depressed to do more than smirk.

They spent the next five or ten minutes debating the best way to keep the Aquatic cruiser functioning for the ten day trip to North Star – as long as they didn't run into any trouble on the way, it looked like the ship would make it without too much trouble – as well as discussing the status of the remaining Xindi vessels. The Arboreal councilor ship was in the best shape, followed by the surprisingly durable troop courier that Naara commanded. All of the rest were in varying states of 'fly it into a sun' and 'I wouldn't recommend giving it to a Klingon.'

The other command staff began trickling into the command center in small groups. Hoshi and Doctor Phlox entered together, the former looking about as tense over the presence of the Xindi as Trip clearly was, followed soon after by Lieutenant Commanders Mayweather and Ricker. The acting chief of the boat, Senior Chief Petty Officer Mitchell, snuck into the command center at some point when Anna wasn't looking, and was lounging near the far wall when Commander T'Pol entered, accompanied by three Xindi – an Arboreal male and two Primates, one male, one female. Rick followed the group with a trio of armored Roughnecks, only one of which entered with him to take up guard near the door. Without saying a word, Eisler immediately scanned the assembled senior officers, his eyes hesitating when they fell on her. Her face flamed and she looked away, but no one seemed to notice.

She hoped.

"Thank you for joining us, Councilors," Trip said, somehow managing to actually sound sincere. He glanced in T'Pol's direction and frowned. The Vulcan responded to the nonverbal hand-off and her words sent a jolt through Hess.

"The Reptilians have nearly completed construction of a replacement Weapon," T'Pol said as she plugged a data rod into the central computer. Instantly, an image appeared on the viewer. It was pixilated and a little out of focus with unfamiliar symbols that were probably Xindi writing, but the spherical construction at the heart of the recording was unmistakable. The Weapon was still anchored planetside within some form of ground-based drydock facility but was swarming with activity. Dozens of support craft – most appearing to be one or two-person flitters or repair drones – darted around the construction while a number of aerial craft orbited overhead, likely to provide defensive overwatch. One of the patrolling craft angled toward the source of the recording. There was a flash of weapons-fire and then … static.

"Well, that changes everything," Trip said softly. 'Big Brother Trip' was completely gone, and in his place was the combat commander who had got them all out of Acheron alive. He shifted his attention to the Xindi. "How long until this thing is operational?" he demanded.

"Weeks," the Arboreal-Xindi said in a wheezing, raspy voice. "Perhaps days."

= /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

They were only days away from being ready.

His hands clasped together in the small of his back, D'deridex i-Mheissan tr'Irrhaimehn stared through the viewport of the observation lounge and admired the elegant lines of the Weapon that he intended to use to change the Empire. Fools like Chulak, currently on the verge of being elected to act in the _fvillha's_ name by the Convocation of Commanders, would be unable to stand against him and the changes he meant to impose. There would be no one to oppose him this time.

And it would be … glorious.

"Master," one of his Remans rumbled, and the voice dragged him out of his plans long enough to become aware that one of the Reptilian-Xin'di was approaching. D'deridex gave _Rhi _a tiny gesture of acknowledgement but remained where he stood, his back to the alien. Underneath the featureless helmet, he smiled when both Remans growled which caused the Xin'di to freeze in mid-step. This was the fifth administrator in as many weeks and he no doubt had no desire to suffer the same fate as his predecessors.

"You may speak," D'deridex said, still not bothering to turn and face the alien. From his research into their culture, he knew that his posture and refusal to face the Xin'di was indicative of superior social position – it was a deadly insult to them to present your back to one who was greater because it implied callous disrespect toward their abilities.

"We are conducting our final checks, Your Excellency," the Reptilian said, his eyes darting back and forth between the two hulking Remans. "We are back on schedule and should be ready for deployment as promised."

"_Will _be ready for deployment," D'deridex corrected. "You have earned one week's respite," he added before raising his left arm and flicking two fingers in dismissal. The Xin'di bowed low and backed away, once more leaving D'deridex to his thoughts.

By any definition, he had blatantly violated the rules of engagement he'd been issued by Central Command. _Do not engage hostiles,_ he had been instructed, but over the last two months, he'd taken the _Vastagor _deeper into the Expanse and conducted a series of brutal, targeted strikes against Xin'di-Insectoid holdings. It was calculated violence – engage with maximum lethality, then fade away before defenders arrived – and had the desired effect. No longer did the Insectoids raid this facility on a weekly basis; instead, they had pulled back their military campaign and were attempting to consolidate what territory they had previously seized, all the while attempting to identify who was responsible for the attacks on their facilities.

These unsanctioned assaults also served a second purpose, one that D'deridex believed to be the more important one, which was to allow him to observe the _Vastagor's_ crew in combat situations. He now knew the strengths and weaknesses of his command staff, knew who to task in dire situations and who amongst them were dispensable meat shields. Sadly, his executive officer, L'haen, was not one of those he could easily replace – the subcommander was both creative and efficient, with a surprising flair for the dramatic that was quite useful at times. D'deridex once more wondered how best to suborn L'haen; if he could but discern a way to turn the junior officer into an ally, the results would be most agreeable.

Another unexpected result of the raids was the discovery that the humans had dispatched their most advanced vessel into the Expanse and it was, even now, conducting research into the activities of the Xin'di. Once more, D'deridex mentally saluted his foe, Archer – sending _Endeavour _into this sector of space was an inspired action as it placed the Terran warship in a position to directly oppose Romulan interests without sacrificing more numerous forces. In many ways, the human vessel was like the Centurion piece in a game of _latrunculo_ – its movements were seemingly erratic and undirected, but if utilized properly, could wreak havoc upon those unprepared for it.

And D'deridex loathed being unprepared.

"We return to _Vastagor,_" he announced as he spun away from the viewport.

He still had not removed his enclosing helmet by the time he arrived aboard his warship, less out of a concern that any of the Xin'di might see what he looked like and more out of a lingering fear that today was the day that L'haen would make his next move in their continuing game of intrigue. Thus far, D'deridex had remained three steps ahead but with each day, he could sense his executive officer making plans and consolidating assets. It was only a matter of time. It always paid to be prepared.

S'enrae was not at the launch bay to greet him, which instantly caused D'deridex to grow suspicious. As an attempt to show the depth of her loyalty to him, she had made a conscious effort to be present each time he returned from dealing with the Xin'di, usually in her duty uniform but once still wearing surgical scrubs stained green with blood. That had been an especially difficult day, as a string of sabotage bombings had claimed the lives of five valuable engineers and put the entire crew on edge. The saboteur turned out to be one of the food preparation specialists who held no allegiance to L'haen – it had been most elucidating to observe the subcommander's wrath at having been targeted by someone other than D'deridex.

_Mne _loped quickly toward the exit hatch, but paused when D'deridex made no effort to move from where he stood in front of the shuttle. The Reman obediently froze in place at D'deridex's hand gesture, but began to visually sweep the hangar for signs of danger._Rhi _followed suit, though he did consult the scanning device strapped to his wrist and disguised to appear simply ornamental.

"Logged," a disembodied voice echoed around them. "The commanding officer is aboard. Subcommander L'haen stands relieved."

Five seconds later, the entire launch bay erupted in blood-green flame.

The soft hiss of a failing electro-plasma system conduit was D'deridex's only warning and he threw himself back toward the shuttle a heartbeat before containment failed completely. Of the two Remans, _Rhi _was the faster and reacted at the same moment, diving toward D'deridex and using his larger, bulkier body to cover his master's. _Mne_spun at the sudden movement of his brother, his hand automatically darting toward the hyperdense knife sheathed at his waist. And in that very instant, the EPS conduit ruptured, spraying the Reman with ionized electro-plasma heated to temperatures in excess of three million degrees.

_Mne _was vaporized before he could even scream.

Fire engulfed the entire launch bay, swirling and twisting and snarling like something alive. Duranium girders buckled under the intense heat and the entire launch bay groaned. Exposed oxygen cannisters exploded, the detonations sounding like the cracks of an ancient artillery barrage. Metal shrapnel, superheated by the dense gas, spun through the launch bay.

With a rumbling hiss, the outer hatch slid open, and the fire was forcibly sucked into the vacuum along with all of the oxygen in the launch bay. Flat on his back with a Reman bodyguard atop him, D'deridex could feel the sudden, painful change in pressure in the bay and closed his eyes as he felt the shuttle tremble. The docking arms securing it in place strained as the tornado of flame and wind buffeted it.

And then, just like that, everything went silent.

D'deridex groaned – he could feel places on his body where skin was now exposed to the air and was gratified that the suit's automatic self-immolation circuitry had not activated – and drew in a long, painful breath. The rebreather on his powered armor labored to obey his needs but already, he could taste it beginning to fail as every inhalation carried with it a hint of acidity.

"Get up," he rasped to _Rhi_. When the Reman did not obey, D'deridex pushed the limp bodyguard aside, noting with a black frown that _Rhi's _entire back had become a blackened husk barely recognizable as belonging to a living being. The armored bodysuit had completely melted away, exposing his flesh to the remorseless flames. _Rhi's _spine was exposed but was a horrible sight as the very bone was charred and distorted. Smoke still curled up from the Reman's unmoving body and D'deridex could see dozens of fragments of shrapnel embedded within.

Clambering to his feet, D'deridex glanced only briefly at the twisted remains of the launch bay – without extensive repairs, the shuttle would not be able to be launched any time soon and it appeared that the outer airlock was actually fused shut – before limping toward the hatch leading to the rest of the ship. Blood trickled down his leg from where a large piece of jagged metal had punched through his thigh. He discarded the ruined helmet and glanced at the pulsing green lights flashing throughout the corridor.

Someone would pay for this.

L'haen was leaning over the tactical resources board, blood caking the side of his face and a fury stamped on his face, when D'deridex entered the _hwaveyiir_. The subcommander did not look up at his approach and seemed completely engrossed in his duties. D'deridex's fury dwindled – the stench of smoke and burned plastic was thick in the command-executive center and at least two of the stations looked to be irreparably damaged.

"You have your orders!" L'haen exclaimed fiercely into the comm-line as D'deridex approached. "I want those fires out _now!_"

"Report," D'deridex ordered as he looked over the display. He nearly winced at the flashing representations of system failures.

"Multiple simultaneous explosions across the ship," L'haen said angrily. "The lead engineering officer is dead and the _dhivael _who replaced him is … _fvadt_!" Cutting himself off in mid-sentence, L'haen slammed his hand down on the transmit button once more. "Stand by for emergency venting!" he nearly bellowed. At a glance, D'deridex could tell his first officer had the right of it – the fires were dangerously close to the deuterium tanks and if not stopped immediately, could easily rip _Vastagor _apart.

"This is the commander," he snapped as L'haen furiously input commands. "Emergency venting in process. All bulkheads aft of Deck Three sealed in twenty seconds." Alarms began to wail.

Three long hours passed before they were finally able to stand down from alert stations. In that time, another ten crewmen and three officers had died, all in the course of their duties as they struggled to fight the damage wrought upon the _Vastagor_. D'deridex quickly learned that S'enrae was in the medical facility, triaging the wounded and doing what she could to save lives. Another three personnel were too far gone for resources to be wasted upon and she dealt the mercy blows with the instruments of her profession. According to preliminary reports, she had been in the medbay when the initial explosions began, treating a foolish engineer who had suffered a non-life threatening plasma burn – that same engineer would later lose his life when all airlocks on Deck Three were opened.

Still, the fact that she had not come to the launch bay to meet him raised D'deridex's suspicions and he decided to keep a closer eye on her.

_My list of allies dwindles,_ he told himself many hours later as he reviewed his situation. Both members of the Honor Pack he'd managed to salvage were dead, the female who very obviously was positioning herself to become his mate remained untrustworthy, and now, he'd lost a quarter of his crew in an act of sabotage that came perilously close to claiming _Vastagor_. Every day took him closer to ruin and if he did not act decisively, all would be lost. The Empire could not survive another century under the leadership of fools like Chulak.

"I mistrust you," he told L'haen shortly thereafter. They were in the first officer's small quarters – there were few decorations and the Honor Blade stored in a place of honor was both unadorned and conspicuously aged, implying an old line fallen into disrepute. "And I know you have your misgivings about me," D'deridex said, "but this is a time when we both need allies, not additional enemies." L'haen frowned.

"You offer an alliance," the subcommander guessed. D'deridex nearly smiled.

"A secret one," he said. "Let our mutual enemies believe us to remain foes so we can draw them out." He was pleased to see a surprised but impressed expression appear briefly upon his first officer's face.

"And then?" L'haen asked. "What shall we do when we have identified them?" D'deridex smiled darkly.

"We destroy them."

= /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

It would need to be destroyed.

That particular decision was the easiest one he had ever made, but even now, nine hours after T'Pol had dropped the superweapon bombshell on them, Trip Tucker was still at a loss as to how they would accomplish that task. Based on all of the data they'd obtained thus far, the weapon was heavily defended by a Xindi-Reptilian battlegroup that was more than a match for the ships they had at their disposal.

But nonetheless, the effort would need to be made, no matter the cost.

With an angry snort of frustration, Trip shut off the shower's steady stream and reached for his towel, his mind still racing. An engineer by training and choice, he once more lamented that he was even in this situation – all he wanted to do was build or fix things, not plan a large-scale tactical assault against a heavily fortified location. Thank God for someone like Rick Eisler, he mused, who had studied this sort of thing for decades.

Rick. Dammit. Thoughts of Eisler invariably sparked a bright flash of illogical anger. Trip had long since known that this universe wasn't fair – it had given him and T'Pol two beautiful, brilliant children and then cruelly snatched them away – but the revelation that Rick had less than six months to live … it just didn't seem right. Eisler was the kind of guy who was supposed to either die gloriously in the middle of some ridiculously ill-advised commando raid to save the planet or live to be a hundred and twenty so he could die peacefully in bed.

Rage warred with terror deep within him, but Trip Tucker pushed it down, suppressed his sadness about Eisler's lack of an actual future, focused on his job, and tried to keep his game face on. Too much was riding on what they did next and they simply didn't have the luxury of mistakes, not with the possibility of a superweapon falling into the hands of the Romulans. And thanks to some low-quality image captures, they had confirmation of at least one bird of prey assisting the Reptilians.

Which had officially turned this entire fiasco into the very reason they had ventured into the Expanse in the first place.

He dressed quickly, lingering briefly over whether to buckle on the phase pistol that Rick insisted he wear while they had potential hostiles aboard, before finally deciding to go with his tactical officer's instincts. So what if having the sidearm there made Trip feel alternately ridiculous and like an extra in a space western? Him being armed made Eisler feel better and reduced the likelihood that Tucker would find a pair of Roughnecks outside his cabin, waiting to escort him to wherever he went.

Beyond his cabin, Trip once more found that the mood aboard _Endeavour _had turned even darker than he could ever remember it being. Even in the days after Acheron he hadn't seen this many grim faces on his ship, but he completely understood and agreed with his crew. Already, the Romulans had shown a staggering lack of concern about civilian casualties so the very idea of them having the Xindi weapon? It was terrifying.

At the moment, _Endeavour _was still loitering in the empty system that they used for the rendezvous with the Xindi refugees despite its inherent vulnerability, all so they could discuss options and make plans. In terms of numbers, the fleet had swelled to twice its previous size thanks to stragglers that had arrived over the last few hours. Most of the vessels were in mediocre shape and of middling use in a combat situation, but there were two dedicated warships – both of Arboreal construction – that seriously augmented their offensive capability.

The presence of the Xindi aboard _Endeavour _was also causing more problems than originally expected, but sadly, Trip could not find it in himself to really disagree with some of the less than professional responses of his crew. In the grand scheme of things, April 2153 wasn't that long ago and there were still quite a lot of unresolved feelings. Some, like Doctor Reyes, Phlox's number two, had lost family members like Trip but hadn't had the opportunity for catharsis like he did, while others – usually Security, Tucker noticed – still looked at the Xindi as the Enemy. Sure, they might not _currently _be the biggest threat, but Rick and Lieutenant Kimura and all of the Roughnecks were terrible at hiding the fact that they were watching Jannar, Depac, and Naara exactly like you'd watch a cornered wild animal.

As he expected, the command center was already occupied when he arrived. Naturally, Eisler was there, once more studying the limited data they had acquired about the drydock as if it held the secrets of the universe buried within, and his usual partner-in-crime, Anna Hess, was at his side. The two seemed inseparable these days, even though they barely seemed to be talking, and Trip had given up trying to figure them out. For years, he'd thought Anna was a lesbian – he had very clear memories of her shooting Travis down by claiming vocal disinterest in all men when the late Boomer had asked her out back aboard _Enterprise _– but the way she watched Rick … well, having looked at T'Pol in the same way for years, Tucker knew exactly what Anna's eyes were saying.

The ordinance officer, Lieutenant Kimura, was present as well. In the last few weeks, Kimura – that was evidently his last name, even though Takashi always gave it first; Hoshi had explained this as a traditional naming method that had fallen out of practice over the years – had become Rick's go-to guy and now, knowing that Eisler was suffering from a terminal condition, Trip had to wonder if his tactical officer wasn't already in the process of training his replacement. Lieutenant Kornegay wasn't an option – like so many of _Endeavour's _officers, she was already slated for a promotion and transfer to a _Daedalus_-class when they got back where she would serve as a department head – and Stiles was, sadly, not fit to do more than load torpedoes (and then, only with competent supervision; Trip honestly couldn't believe the ensign was actually related to the late Jake Stiles), so Kimura was the logical choice. Fortunately, the lieutenant seemed more than capable, even if his style was more suited toward stealth and guile than Rick's aggressive, balls to the wall, maximum firepower aimed precisely for maximum results.

Surprisingly, though, Selina Mayweather was also sitting in on this impromptu pow-wow. Something had changed about her since they'd entered the Expanse and it was almost exclusively positive. More and more, Trip saw flashes of her late brother in his helmsman – she had the same sense of humor, the same brilliant smile, and the same way of just making you think things weren't as bad as they looked. From her record, Tucker knew she'd been married before joining Starfleet, and her husband, Rashid al-Yasemi, had died at Thor's Cradle even though his ship had been one of the few to successfully escape the Vigrid System, but he knew very little else about her.

"Give me some good news," Trip ordered as he joined the quartet in front of the viewscreen. He gave it a glance, frowning at the number of tagged contacts identified as probable enemy combatants. This wasn't going to be easy.

"There is very little good news to give, sir," Rick said flatly. He nodded toward the image. "As you can tell," the tactical officer said darkly, "we are outnumbered and outgunned."

"Yeah," Anna interjected with forced good cheer, "but they're _outclassed._" Trip smirked at the joke, noting that both Kimura and Mayweather did as well. Eisler, however, merely grunted and continued his briefing.

"Commander T'Pol is currently coordinating with Councilor Naara to obtain all data recordings from the Xindi fleet for further analysis," Rick said. There was a curious tone in his voice when he pronounced Degra's wife's name that Trip initially thought he'd imagined. When Anna gave Eisler a sidelong look, a question in her eyes, Tucker realized that he most definitely had not.

"You have something to say about the councilor?" he asked. Eisler hesitated.

"I do not trust her," he said simply. "She is not telling us everything," Rick added a moment later. "There is something … not right about her."

"Councilor Jannar mentioned to Lieutenant Commander Sato that he was concerned for Naara's mental health," Kimura offered. Trip glanced at him – he'd noticed that Hoshi had started sharing a lot of meals with the lieutenant and wondered if it was any of his business what was going on between them – and frowned.

"She lost her husband," Selina said softly. She shrugged. "That can really screw someone up." Kimura flinched, which was an instant reminder to Trip that the lieutenant's wife had been aboard _Atlantis _at Acheron. _God, _Tucker mused darkly to himself, _do I have _anyone _aboard who _hasn't _lost a loved one to the Romulans?_

The hiss of the door opening behind him was almost immediately followed by a warm mental caress, and Trip half-turned as T'Pol filed into the command center. Directly behind her were a number of others – the three Xindi councilors, the two Arboreal commanders of the dedicated warships, Hoshi, Ricker, Senior Chief Mitchell and two Roughnecks sadly including CPO Fernandez – which made for uncomfortably tight quarters. Without speaking, T'Pol strode directly to one of the alternate computer systems and plugged in her PADD. Instantly, schematics and other images appeared on the screen. She began paging through the data, and Trip could feel the flavor of her thoughts as she absorbed information at an always startling rate.

"Based on our current fleet strength," Rick said, beginning his briefing without bothering to introduce himself to their guests, "Lieutenant Kimura and I have formulated an initial battle strategy." He input several commands and graphical representations of ships began appearing on the screen. "Thirty percent of our strength will enter the system from galactic north at this point," he said, pointing to a spot on the two-dimensional representation of the drydock system. "They will begin maneuvering as if to engage, which should draw the bulk of the Reptilian defenders out of position."

"How do you know that?" Depac demanded, crowding forward and pinning Eisler with a hostile glare. Rick returned the look with a detached coldness that T'Pol would have approved of if she had been paying more than scant attention. "Have you ever faced Reptilians in combat?"

"I have spent my entire life waging war in some fashion, Councilor," Eisler said in a low, intimidating hiss. "The Reptilians are aggressive and impatient. Present them with an opportunity for glory, hint at weakness, and you will goad them into making a mistake." Depac's anger faltered slightly in the face of Rick's impassive remark.

"You certainly seem to have an understanding of their weaknesses," Jannar offered in what sounded like an attempt at a compliment. At his side, Naara was studying Commander Eisler with an intensity that Trip found unsettling. She didn't blink often enough and her eyes swam with some emotion that Tucker couldn't quite comprehend. While Rick seemed oblivious to the woman's attention, Anna Hess clearly wasn't and Trip nearly laughed outright when his chief engineering officer ambled closer to the tactical officer, giving Naara a look that was unmistakably possessive.

"I am _Endeavour's _tactical officer," Eisler said coldly. "It is my job to know how to neutralize _any _hostile who poses a threat to this ship _or_ attacks Earth." The implication was impossible to ignore and both Depac and Jannar shifted awkwardly, neither appearing able to meet his gaze. Trip cleared his throat.

"Rick."

"My apologies, Captain," the tactical officer said. He returned his focus to the main screen. "Once the Reptilian fleet breaks formation and moves to engage, the rest of our taskforce will approach from galactic south." He frowned. "By necessity," he added, "_Endeavour _will take point. We are the fastest and most maneuverable, so we will engage the Reptillian fleet from their aft." The graphical representations shifted position. "If I have judged their general tactics correctly, our assault should sow enough chaos among their leadership to allow the rest of the battlegroup to engage." Rick pinned the two Arboreal captains with a look. "We will be relying on the firepower of your respective ships to help establish an effective buffer zone so we can conduct strafing runs on the drydock facility." He glanced once toward Anna and she picked up the briefing automatically, as if they'd rehearsed this very thing.

"We'll use the transporter to deploy as many charges _into _the weapon as possible," she said, tapping a button that changed the screen to a schematic. Key locations were already highlighted. "Critical failures at these locations will cause a containment breach, which should also trigger a complete system collapse."

"While this is occurring," Eisler said, "we will conduct selected bombardment of the drydock facility, targeting anything that is flammable or explosive to inflict addition structural damage."

"I've got my people working with Rick's to see what we can do about bumping up the yield of some of our torps," Anna offered, once more giving Naara a look that the Xindi-Primate returned blithely.

"Fall-back position once the target is reduced will be the North Star forward operating base where we can conduct repairs and refit as necessary," the tactical officer concluded.

"Where is this … North Star?" one of the Arboreal ship commanders inquired. All of the Xindi appeared at least slightly concerned at mention of a base. Rick hesitated and glanced to Trip who gave him a subtle nod.

"I will provide each ship commander with stellar coordinates," the tactical officer said, "but it is essential they do not fall into enemy hands." Both Arboreal captains nodded in agreement. "My primary concern remains the level of firepower we have at our disposal," Eisler said after a moment. "Most of the refugee ships are ill-prepared for pitched battle." He locked eyes with Depac. "There _will _be casualties."

"My people are prepared to do whatever is necessary to destroy this weapon, no matter the cost," the Xindi-Primate declared. He looked down. "We never should have never constructed the first one," he said darkly. The reaction to the statement was mixed – virtually every human present glowered, while the Xindi generally looked embarrassed or guilty.

"So let me get this right," Trip remarked in an attempt to lighten the mood. "We're part of a ragged band of rebels trying to destroy a spherical, moon-sized superweapon?" He shook his head as he glanced at Hess. "Haven't I seen this movie?" he asked wryly.

"Trip." T'Pol's voice sliced through the resulting human chuckles and drew all eyes. Hearing her use his nickname while they were on duty sent a shiver up Tucker's spine and he joined her without question, noting immediately the subtle signs of horror she was radiating. Her nostrils flared and she visibly swallowed. The moment he saw the handwritten equation notations on the display of the weapon, Trip felt something seize within him.

It was in _his _handwriting.

"Where did you get these schematics?" he demanded sharply as T'Pol paged through them. Her smaller, neater handwriting was as common as his and he could feel the emotions thundering through the bond.

"They were captured from a derelict Reptilian ship," Naara replied. Her voice was soft and raspy, with an undertone of confusion.

"These schematics indicate radical structural differences," T'Pol stated, her voice trembling so slightly that Trip suspected he was the only one present – apart from Hoshi, of course, and maybe Rick or Anna – who noticed.

"They've reinforced the bulkheads here and here," Trip said under his breath. "And it looks like they incorporated our idea about the internal shielding to boost structural integrity."

"Indeed." T'Pol pointed to a series of distinct computer nodes and the notes next to them. "That is my work," she said softly. Trip nodded.

"I know," he replied, equally soft. "They couldn't have gotten this from _Enterprise _without us knowing."

"Not from _our Enterprise_, no," she replied. "And I have never written these notes." She looked at him and Trip met her young-old eyes.

"Sir?" Eisler had joined them and looked slightly confused.

"The plan has changed," Trip announced. "The charges won't be enough. We'll need to insert a saboteur team to plant the charges."

"More importantly," T'Pol said, "the captain and I must accompany this team."

"Unacceptable," Eisler said instantly. "There is no way I will authorize something like that."

"It isn't up to you, Commander," Trip said. He nodded to the schematics on T'Pol's viewer. "See those notes?" he asked. "T'Pol and I wrote them." Silence enveloped the command center. "Somehow, they got our notes from the previous mission and adapted this weapon to compensate for the weaknesses we found." The blood drained from Hoshi's face and Anna inhaled sharply, prompting Trip to suspect that they had pieced together the truth. "These notations use my personal shorthand," Tucker added, nodding in Hess' direction. "Ask her – you can't read it if you don't know how I think."

"And sometimes even that does not help," T'Pol said.

"Amen, sister," Anna muttered, her words clearly not intended to carry. She flushed when both Trip and Eisler gave her a sidelong look.

"I will need additional time to alter the plan," Rick began. Depac stepped forward.

"I may have a solution," the Xindi-Primate said. "We have been planning for some time to conduct a raid – Naara's troop courier is both fast and stealthy. It could be used to insert your team."

"_Our _team," Naara corrected, her eyes bright. "Allowing this weapon to fall into the hands of the Reptilians was _our _mistake, so it should be us who corrects that."

Eisler frowned. He clearly disliked this entire plan and Trip had to admit, he'd heard better in the past. If there had been _any _way to blow this thing to pieces that didn't involve him and T'Pol putting their necks on the line, he would have gladly have approved it.

"That's it then," Trip said grimly. "You'll be in command of _Endeavour _during this mission," he told his tactical officer. "T'Pol and I will go aboard with Naara and her team, plant our charges and get the hell out."

"Chief Fernandez," Rick said abruptly. The named Roughneck straightened. "Assemble a team. You'll escort the captain and first officer." He gave her a flat look. "And you'll bring them both back alive."

"Aye, sir," Fernandez said before glancing at Mitchell. He gave her a half-shrug, half-nod.

"I don't like this, sir," Eisler said softly once the briefing had broken up.

"Neither do I, Rick," Trip said with a frustrated sigh. "Neither do I."

= /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

He didn't like their current situation.

His environment suit helmet tucked under one arm, Dan Hsiao walked confidently through the corridors of the captured bird of prey, no sign of the seething worry currently burning its way out of his stomach. The crew needed to see him as unworried, implacable, invincible, as they continued the salvage operation. It wasn't relevant that over half of the ship was still exposed to vacuum, or that Lieutenant Nadir had detected some troubling sensor encroachments only a few hours earlier that might or might not be Romulan reinforcements around the nuked out colony world, or that Lieutenant Gilchrist and Lieutenant Anthony were still arguing over the validity of the ChEng's scan discrepancies. No, all that mattered was the Skipper, the Captain, the 'Old Man' was on the case and wasn't worried.

At the moment, Dan was conducting his latest tour of the repair work his damage control teams had accomplished. With minimal power, operating pretty much blind since they still couldn't boot up the ship's computer to access any tech manuals (in the unlikely event that they could translate the damned things in the first place), and with not enough sleep, Lieutenant Gilchrist's people had worked a minor miracle. Sure, the power plant was still offline so they were running on battery backups, the warp drive remained a very unfunny joke, and the before-mentioned computer core refused to even turn on, but at least there was oxygen and entire sections of the ship were now pressurized. Plus, Hsiao thought wryly as he surveyed the weapons bay, the torpedo tubes still worked in case they wanted to do some target practice.

"Looking good, Chief," he told the engineering lead petty officer who was currently showing him around. With _Hyperion _trying to maintain as low a sensor profile as possible while towing the bird of prey out of the system at impulse with already overstressed grapplers, Lieutenant Gilchrist was needed aboard the Starfleet vessel. If he was honest, Dan would have to admit that was probably a good thing – the LPO was ten years his elder, had a beard and didn't come close to having as great an ass as _Hyperion's _chief engineer, but at least Hsiao wasn't tempted to push Chief Petty Officer James MacKillop into a storage closet and have his wicked way with him.

"We're still investigating the brownouts on C Deck that the ChEng reported," MacKillop said in a surprisingly Australian accent. Just looking at the LPO, with his shock of red hair and distinctly Scottish features, one would expect him to be from Edinburgh or Glasgow, not from Sydney. "So far, we've found nothing."

"I'm starting to think you're chasing gremlins down there, Chief," Dan remarked with a slight smile. MacKillop grunted and glanced away.

"Not sure I can agree with you there, sir," he said. "Every time I'm in that section," the LPO added, "I can feel someone watching me only there's no one there." Hsiao felt a slight shiver crawl up his spine – having visited C Deck recently, he knew exactly what the chief petty officer was talking about … which was why he'd ordered the C Deck sealed off entirely – but he pretended not to notice. "I've got Davis looking into whether the computer _is _active and is doing its own thing."

"An A.I.?" Dan mused. He frowned – had Command even considered that possibility? – then shrugged. "Whatever it is," he said, "I'm sure you and your team will figure it out." MacKillop nodded in appreciation of the compliment and turned away to resume his duties. He was barely three or four steps away when Dan's wrist communicator began beeping urgently. Sighing, he reached for the transmit button, hoping that it wasn't Marie calling to 'check in.'

"This is Hsiao," he said into the transceiver and was instantly rewarded with a loud crackle of static. Even with the carefully placed beacon transmitters through the ship, communications were spotty and sensors were right out. Thanks to whatever it was the Romulans used in their hulls, a person aboard the bird of prey simply vanished from_Hyperion's _scanners. Transport to the ship required the person to be beamed into an section exposed to space … although the shuttlepods worked just as well if a bit slower.

"Commander, we've detected an unidentified energy spike emanating from the bird of prey." Lieutenant Nadir was, as always, unruffled and almost laconic despite the potentially life-threatening news he was relating.

"What is it?" Dan asked as he gestured for MacKillop to return.

"Unknown, sir." Nadir sounded only slightly apologetic – he'd gone on at great, boring length during one of the daily staff briefings about how difficult it was to penetrate Romulan hulls, and how brilliant he was for _Hyperion's _scans to be as effective as they were. The line fuzzed out briefly and when it came back, there was a new voice speaking.

"This is Gilchrist," the chief engineer announced. "Sir, I recommend we pull back all personnel until we can figure out what it is we're dealing with." Hsiao smirked – that was what he was already planning to do and, from the expression on MacKillop's face and the chief petty officer's whispered conversation into his own headset, they were already getting started.

"Agreed," Dan said. He stabbed a button on the wrist panel that opened up a new suit-to-suit comm-line. "Attention," he said into the open channel, "this is Hsiao. Initiate return protocols immediately. _Hyperion_, begin beaming out personnel as soon as they reach the extraction point."

"Copy that, sir."

"I'm still forward of the central corridor," Dan continued. "Chief MacKillop and I will begin heading back now. We'll do the final sweep."

"There should be a service access point near you," Gilchrist said, likely studying their crude schematics. "You could use it to get to an airlock and we could beam you…"

"You have your orders, Lieutenant," Dan said sharply. "Hsiao out." He was getting thoroughly sick and tired of his command staff constantly acting like he was made of glass. Anymore, the instant the situation started to look the least bit hairy, they were all conspiring to wrap him in bubble tape and styrofoam.

"Evac is in progress, sir," MacKillop said as he pulled on his EV helmet. Dan nodded and followed suit. "According to the work schedule, we should be the only personnel forward of Corridor B-12."

"Well," Hsiao remarked with a smile, "let's go home."

They were nearly at the service ladder that connected the A and B Decks when a flicker of motion drew Dan's attention to his left. He blinked – for a moment, he'd been sure that he saw some shadows move – and was about to open his mouth to call Chief MacKillop's attention to it when both of their communicators began shrieking a high-pitched alert. Hsiao's blood ran cold – that signal could mean only thing.

_Hyperion _was under attack by Romulans.

The bird of prey sudden shook hard, a sure sign that _Hyperion _had cut the grapplers loose so they could maneuver, and bare seconds later, another harder impact sent them both tumbling. Lights flickered and died the exact same moment that internal gravity failed. Suddenly weightless, Dan tumbled directly into the nearest wall and bounced off it, his inertia sending him in an uncontrolled spin. He flailed his arms out for all of a half second before his fingers finally caught an exposed surface that gave him just enough leverage to arrest his movement.

"Chief!" he shouted, turned his head in the direction where he'd last seen MacKillop.

And to his horror, he saw the engineering lead petty officer die.

A skeletally thin figure wearing the tattered remains of what had to be a Romulan environment suit sprang out of hiding from the corridor that Dan had saw movement in only moments before, timing his or her desperate leap to coincide with MacKillop's less than acrobatic display in zero gee. Gripped tightly in the hostile's hands was a long strip of metal that looked to be a section of a duranium girder, probably sheared clean from the superstructure by the original crash landing. Its edges gleamed in the darkness illuminated only by the flashing strobes of the beacons secured at equidistant intervals along the corridor, and the improvised weapon punched through MacKillop's faceplate before he even realized he was in danger. The visor shattered and globules of crimson exploded outward, floating through the darkness like hundreds of tiny red marbles. Displaying casual grace in the null gravity, the Romulan drew its legs up to use MacKillop's corpse as a springboard and tore the thick metal pole free with chilling ease. The hostile cast around for less than a second before looking directly in Dan's direction. From this distance, Hsiao couldn't make out anything resembling features, nor did he waste time trying to do so. Instead, he acted completely on instinct.

With a speed he didn't think he possessed, Dan used his legs to push away from the open door he was crouched near even as he went for the holstered phase pistol at his side. Drawing it should have been difficult – he was in zero gee, after all, and the gloves of the environment suit were a little too thick to handle the sidearm effectively – but the weapon came free with only the slightest effort. He brought the pistol up as he flew backwards through the corridor, a tiny portion of his brain recognizing that the bird of prey was shaking again, this time harder than before and that the Romulan was sailing toward him, the improvised weapon aimed directly at Hsiao. He thumbed the safety off.

And without hesitation, he squeezed the trigger.

Focused, coherent energy flashed out, burning through the Romulan's helmet. The weapon was set at the highest intensity – the kill setting – but Dan squeezed the trigger again. And again. And again. Someone was screaming and the moment his back slammed into a bulkhead, Hsiao realized it was him.

The Romulan corpse sailed past him, limp and no longer a threat, and he spared it only a moment's glance as it tumbled haphazardly down the corridor, spinning and twirling as it bounced off of walls. Around them, the bird of prey sudden rolled and trembled madly, and Dan could see in the distance Chief MacKillop's body vanish as emerald energy seared through the hull.

Barely taking the time to orient himself, Hsiao pushed off the bulkhead wall and threw himself headlong through an open hatch. In mid-flight, he flexed his abdominal muscles and forced his body to contort itself to begin a slow somersault. Less than a second later, his feet slammed into the wall and he took in his surrounding with a single glance._Weapons deck_, he identified darkly. This was one of the very last places he wanted to be – if he wasn't mistaken, the energy he'd just seen ripping through the hull was ship-based particle cannon fire and when it reached here, it would ignite the ordinance that they hadn't transported to _Hyperion _for further study at which point, he would be thoroughly and completely atomized. No, he needed an airlock or … or …

Or a functioning torpedo tube.

Without letting himself think it through, Dan pushed off once more, this time angling toward the sealed launcher. He fumbled with the controls, wincing at the flashes of green light indicating a rejection of the command he'd input. His breath was coming loud and heavy in his ears which was surreal as it was the _only _thing he could hear. When the console buzzed another negative – he could feel the vibration through his gloves – he cursed angrily and smashed the butt of the phase pistol into the panel. It sparked briefly before the hatch noiselessly slid open.

Throwing himself into the tube feet first, Dan could feel the bird of prey still rocking. It was worse than any earthquake and he knew the vessel was on the verge of breaking apart. Looking back into the weapons deck, he quickly located the controls for this tube. Almost exactly a torpedo's distance away from the hatch, it was a computer console raised to almost chest level for a normal human by a metal and plastic support column. Muttering a soft prayer to a deity he wasn't sure he believed in, Hsiao aimed his pistol once more and pulled the trigger.

God's own fist struck him then. First, there was unbearable pain, centralized in his left arm but quickly spreading throughout his entire body. It hurt to breath and he was positive that his heart had simply exploded from the agony. His vision swam out of focus.

And then, just like that, a warm lassitude swept through him, washing away the pain and replacing it with a numb blanket of nothingness. A woman's voice was speaking to him, saying something in a language he wasn't entirely able to comprehend even though he knew the words. Something flared above him and he looked up in time to see a trio of similarly-shaped ships swarming around a fourth that suddenly vanished in an angry-looking fireball. A fifth ship, ungainly and awkward when compared to the others, was nearby and exchanging weapons fire with the three. Large, gaping holes exposed the ugly ship's superstructure and it was leaking warp plasma. The three smaller ships dove around the rapidly expanding cloud of debris that had been one of their brothers and converged on the other ship. Outnumbered and wounded, the ugly ship wheeled around and vanished in a flicker of light.

Hyperion,his brain finally pieced together. _That was _Hyperion _and it just got away._

_Good for them, _the logical part of him exulted. One of the things he'd long tried to pound into his officers was that the mission was more important than any one crewmember, no matter his or her rank, and it looked like they'd finally started to listen. He watched with a growing smile as the three Romulan birds of prey banked hard and accelerated away in the opposite direction as _Hyperion_.

"Critical injury detected," the environment suit's tiny computer advised him and Dan finally began thinking clearly enough to understand what it was saying. "Suit breach contained. Massive physical trauma detected. Emergency medical protocols initiated." Hsiao frowned – what trauma? He felt fine. In fact, he felt better than fine. There was no pain anywhere. He felt like … oh.

Comprehension dawned slowly through the fog of narcotics. The newer model EV Suits came equipped with medical biosensors that would deploy massive doses of painkillers if the situation warranted it. He glanced down to check the readouts on his wrist computer but quickly realized that the device was no longer there.

And neither was his arm.

Daniel Hsiao began to laugh.

* * *

><p>AN: The final scene of this act occurs concurrently with the next act.


	6. Act Five

**ACT FIVE**

_Captain's starlog, 1 May 2158. Commander Eisler reporting. Endeavour is at alert condition red. All departments report ready for combat action. Estimated time of arrival at target system is thirty-four minutes. Nothing follows. End log._

* * *

><p>There was nothing remotely amusing about their current situation, but Trip Tucker was smirking anyway.<p>

The Xindi-Primate troop courier was packed to capacity, with every individual present heavily armed and completely absorbed with their own thoughts. At least fifty Primates were secured in their acceleration seats, most having already donned helmets and all clinging to their weapons in a time-honored 'oh, God, I don't want to die' manner. The ten Roughnecks that Commander Eisler had insisted come along were even more impressive-looking than their Xindi counterparts, thanks to the coal-black combat armor and full face visors. Two of them – Hicks and Hudson – were actually asleep, their helmets wedged into place between the seats and the bulkhead so they would remain immobile. The entire hold stunk of adrenalin, fear, and terror.

But Trip barely noticed. His attention was riveted on T'Pol.

Just like him, she was wearing a scaled-down version of the heavier armor Fernandez and her team wore. The combat softsuit clung to T'Pol's curves like a second skin except where hardened plates like the cuirass, gauntlets and boots covered vital part of her anatomy. A single phase pistol was holstered at her side, but her focus was on the scanner currently in her hand. To Trip, she looked like an avenging angel, a bad-ass super commando straight out of an action movie.

He sincerely couldn't recall ever being this turned on.

The troop courier rocked and shook as her pilot dove into the outer atmosphere of the Reptilian drydock planet. So far, they hadn't been detected and, if things played out as planned – never a guarantee in this job – the arrival of the Arboreal and Primate battle group would cover their stealth insertion.

"Ninety seconds," the pilot announced over the internal comm-system, her words causing a flurry of activity as the Xindi not wearing their helmets donned them. Displaying no sign of worry or concern, T'Pol secured her scanner at her belt and reached for her helmet, glancing up to meet Trip's eyes as she did. She raised an eyebrow and he could feel her mental shields relax slightly at the taste of his thoughts. The look she gave him then was priceless – disbelief that he would even consider sex at this time, in this location; amused affection at what she considered blatant illogic; and of course, deeply buried fear that he would be injured. As always, she was utterly unconcerned about her own fate.

"Good to go, sir," CPO Fernandez announced, her voice breaking the moment. Trip gave the chief petty officer a quick look, noting without surprise that all ten Roughnecks were alert and ready for action. With a sigh, Tucker hefted his helmet.

"Here we go," he muttered as he pulled it on and secured it.

Bare seconds later, alarms began howling as the drydock auto-defenses finally noticed their approach and slewed around, tracking software immediately activating. The sky was suddenly crisscrossed with particle cannon fire and incoming missiles that streaked by the fast-moving troop courier and detonated with teeth-rattling force. One of the Roughnecks shouted something unintelligible – it sounded like a war whoop – and several of the others began laughing, which immediately prompted the Xindi to look in their direction. Though Trip couldn't see the expressions on the faces of the Primates, he strongly suspected that they were looking at the human security personnel as if they were insane.

Because that's exactly what he was doing.

"Ten seconds!" the pilot exclaimed.

Taking heavy fire, the courier ship hit the tarmac just below the Weapon heartbeats later, bouncing twice before skidding to a stop. With a hollow boom, the deployment ramp fell open and the Xindi-Primates swarmed out, their rifles already chattering. Fernandez's SEAL team was seconds behind them, Trip and T'Pol firmly in the middle of the Roughneck formation. PO3 Llosa had point and he darted toward an overturned armored ground vehicle, his heavy pulse cannon barking out a steady stream of phased energy packets. His own pistol in hand, Trip followed and skidded into cover behind the smoking car. He exchanged a wide-eyed look with T'Pol who crouched next to him.

The battle of Xindus Secundus had begun.

= /\ = = /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

The battle had barely begun and already, five allied ships were gone.

"Hard about," Rick Eisler ordered sharply, "two one two by seven five." On the main viewscreen, he could see the heavily damaged Aquatic cruiser beginning to break apart under the concentrated fire from the Reptilian defenders – it was not going down without a fight, though, as it had singlehandedly destroyed or crippled at least twelve Reptilian gunships and had scattered the remainder with its bold assault. Although he had no evidence, Rick suspected that the Aquatics knew that they would not survive this engagement and thus attacked without mercy, using their sacrifice to pave the way for their Arboreal and Primate brethren. Mentally, he saluted them.

But he did not grieve their passing.

_Endeavour _banked hard as Lieutenant Commander Mayweather manipulated the controls, and for a long, extended moment, the inertial dampeners which allowed such radical maneuvers struggled to compensate. Gravity pushed Rick back into the command chair, pinning him in place and making it difficult to even breathe.

"All batteries, fire!" Lieutenant Kornegay snapped into her headset from where she stood at the tactical position. _Endeavour's _internal lighting dimmed as the offensive suites sucked up power and a steady _thrum thrum thrum_ of torpedoes launching echoed throughout the ship. On his command display, Rick could see the results – a trio of Mark VI's screamed from the tubes, followed almost instantly by another three, and all six flashed through the darkness to impact against the hull of a Reptilian destroyer. Explosions rocked the ship, even as _Endeavour's _phase cannons engaged. Lances of raw energy stabbed out, carving gruesome lines across the warship's bow. A second barrage of torpedoes corkscrewed through the void, detonating with fierce flashes of atomic fire that ripped apart armored plates and spilled fragile bodies into the remorseless vacuum. The Reptilian gunship tried to stagger away but the more lightly armed Primate ships pounced the instant they perceived weakness – particle cannons barked from almost a dozen ships.

The Reptilian destroyer didn't have a chance.

"Commander." Rick's head snapped around at Lieutenant Commander Ricker's tone of voice. She was leaning forward to study her holo-viewer, momentarily presenting him only a view of her back. "I'm detecting a Romulan power signature near orbital station Beta," she said. Eisler smiled coldly.

"Tag it and forward it to tactical," he ordered before turning to look at Kornegay. "I want that ship dead," he said.

"With pleasure, sir," the fire control officer said with a dark smile.

"Commander Sato," Rick called out. The communications officer looked up from her board and Eisler realized that her eyes were wider than they should be. It took him only moments to recall that she had been abducted by Reptilians off the bridge of _Enterprise_in the middle of a space battle during the previous Delphic Expanse mission and had been subsequently tortured by those Xindi. That she was holding it together as well as she was told him everything he needed to know about her strength of character. "Status on ground operation?" he asked.

"SEAL Team leader indicates they are meeting heavy resistance," Sato replied. "No casualties," she added. For the span of a single second, Rick wondered if Fernandez had meant that the entire assault force had lost no one or if she was referring to only the human contingent, but just as quickly recognized that the chief petty officer – who hailed from South America and had lost a number of family members and close associates in 2153 – definitely wouldn't care if even a single Xindi died.

"Helm, bring us around," Eisler said, dragging his full attention back to the tactical display in front of him. There was a Reptilian heavy cruiser in the middle of the defender's formation that looked to be a command ship of some sort and even as Rick noticed it, the defending fleet appeared to be regrouping. He tapped the sensor contact on his feed, and then tapped the HLM button to send a command request to Mayweather's console. "Get us in his aft."

The Romulan could wait.

= /\ = = /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

He could wait no longer.

Fury singing in his veins, L'haen i-Ramnau tr'Llweii abandoned his study of the tactical board and turned his head toward the two newly promoted subcenturions awaiting orders. Neither was worthy of their rank, but D'deridex had identified them both as probable agents for their mutual adversary, Chulak. Raising them to positions they were incapable of handling was part of the commander's ultimate plan to isolate the two and then suborn them.

L'haen would have simply killed them.

"All personnel to combat stations," he ordered sharply, well aware of the eyes on him. He knew full well that many of them expected him to use the unexpected attack by the human-led strike group as an opportunity to abandon the commander planetside where he had gone only hours before the first hostiles dropped out of war, but L'haen truthfully had no such plans. In the week since they had agreed to the secret alliance, he had discovered in D'deridex a Rihannsu after his own heart. The commander saw and loathed the dishonorable backstabbing that was such a requirement for higher rank. D'deridex even shared L'haen's distaste for the callous sacrifice of honorable soldiers by politicians who knew nothing of war.

Having an alliance with the commander did not mean that L'haen had not abandoned his attempts to defend against D'deridex's machinations, though. He was no fool.

"Scanning Chief," L'haen bellowed, his voice carrying across the _oira_, "I want confirmation of the Terran ship's identity!" L'haen did not wait for the acknowledgement from the sublieutenant responsible and instead shifted his attention to another junior officer. "Helm Officer," he snapped. "Cut us loose from this station! I want battle maneuvers at once!"

He dropped into the command chair and studied the display on the main viewer. The attackers had struck with complete surprise and had, in their opening moments, had already destroyed enough of the Reptilians to throw the rest into chaos. Even now, the Starfleet ship was engaging the sole remaining command ship of the defenders, using its far superior maneuverability to easily dance around the lumbering warship. Already, the_Vastagor's _sensors could detect fires on all decks of the command cruiser, and it was only a matter of time before the humans destroyed it.

With a loud boom that echoed throughout the entire ship, the docking clamps connecting_Vastagor _to the Reptilian orbital platform detached. Instantly, the helmsman fed power to the main drive and L'haen felt gravity press him back into the chair. He made a mental note to chastise the acting lead engineer – _again_; that fool had no business even _looking_at an impulse drive, let alone be in charge of its maintenance – but set the thoughts aside for the moment.

"Engage at will," L'haen ordered. He watched with approval as _Vastagor's _weapon systems erupted, the heavy disruptor cannons unleashing lethal salvos that destroyed one of the Xindi-Primate craft outright. Two more rolled to engage them, but their particle beams could not penetrate the protective shields, and the gun crews retaliated without hesitation – blood-green streams of focused, coherent energy stabbed out and melted armored plating or burned through weakened superstructure. Desperate to evade_Vastagor's _dangerous lethality, the two Xindi craft went on pure defense.

But even that didn't save them.

As the two Xindi craft vanished in flashes of frozen fire and debris, L'haen drew in a deep breath and glanced toward his scanning chief. The sublieutenant was already watching him, waiting for permission to report his findings. L'haen nodded.

"Confirmed," the scanning chief announced. "_Endeavour_."

"How interesting," L'haen mused. He only briefly considered taking the fight to the human ship, but in the end, allowed caution to dictate his actions. _Endeavour _was undamaged and in full fighting form, whereas _Vastagor _was still recovering from sabotage and down to two-thirds effective combat crew. A battle now would only result in his destruction and L'haen had far too much left to do for that to happen. Even S'task had once said that choosing the time and place of an unavoidable battle was the first part in winning the engagement. "Maintain distance from the human ship," he instructed. "Scanning Chief, I want as much data as you can obtain on that vessel." Comprehension washed away the expressions of surprise and mild contempt on the COMMAND-BRIDGE, and L'haen fought down a smile. It was as he had always known: phrase an unpalatable command properly and even malcontents would follow it. "Helm!" he snapped. "Full impulse!"

= /\ = = /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

On impulse, she peeked over the grav-vehicle, but the angry whine of pulse weapons immediately caused T'Pol to duck back into cover.

They had not budged from the overturned armored personnel carrier that Petty Officer Third Class Llosa had led them to in the ten long minutes of the still ongoing firefight. Had it been an especially good vantage point, remaining in place for such an extended period of time would have been logical, but in truth, the position was vulnerable and exposed. If the Reptilians managed to flank the assaulting force as they had tried twice since the opening moments, it was unlikely that they would survive.

Despite initial success, the ground offensive had completely stalled. Reptilian defenders were tenacious and their prepared positions made taking ground extraordinarily difficult. All major elements of the assault were pinned down, including the _Endeavour_ contingent. Retreat was cut off as well – the troop courier was now a smoking ruin, reduced to slag by the heavy weapon emplacements that were even now ravaging the ranks of the Xindi-Primates.

It was, in T'Pol's opinion, quite unacceptable.

"We can't stay here!" Fernandez snarled as another salvo of enemy fire kicked up ferrocrete debris.

"Taking suggestions!" one of the Roughnecks – T'Pol thought it was Hawkins, although he and Petty Officer Simons sounded strikingly similar, even when they were not wearing helmets – exclaimed.

"T'Pol!" Her head snapped around to meet Trip's eyes – he was at the very center of the vehicle, in the spot that was the most protected, and Chief Petty Officer Fernandez had twice been forced to physically pull him back into cover when he attempted something especially foolhardy. "The APC," her mate said sharply, gesturing toward the landcar they were all huddled behind. "Is it functional?" T'Pol blinked but comprehended the point of his query immediately. She extracted her scanner.

"No," she replied, frowning under the full-face helmet. "But I believe you might be capable of emergency repairs." Without another word, she offered him the scanner and Trip gave it a quick look, nodding as scanned the results.

"I need to get in there," he declared tightly.

"Not a chance, sir," Fernandez hissed. Trip gave the SEAL team leader a fierce look spoiled by the darkness of his visor, but T'Pol could feel the spike of anger rolling off her husband. He was on the verge of saying something to the CPO that T'Pol knew he would later regret.

"You have your orders, Chief Fernandez," she said quickly, before Trip could react. Fernandez looked in T'Pol's direction before shaking her head softly and muttering something under her breath in a language T'Pol did not recognize.

"Roughnecks," she called out, "let's give the captain some breathing room." She checked her rifle. "How long will you need, sir?"

"As long as I can get," Trip replied. He holstered his pistol.

"All right," Fernandez said. "On three. One. Two."

The security troopers moved before she could finish her count and, by the way Fernandez herself rose to bring her weapon to bear, it seemed as if that was the unstated intent. Springing into place around or over the grav-vehicle, the Roughnecks began shooting the instant their weapons came to bear, and the sheer volume of fire they unleashed was staggering. Petty Officer Llosa raked his heavy pulse cannon across the ranks of the defending Reptilians, screaming an inarticulate battle cry as he fired. Crouching on either side of him, Petty Officers Hawkins and Chao began rapid-fire with their EM-41s, seemingly more interested in number of shots than accuracy. At the same time, the rest of the SEAL team stepped around the rear of the grav-vehicle, unleashing a withering barrage to cover first Trip and then Petty Officer Moore as they both scrambled to the top of the groundcar. Moore did not follow Trip, however, instead opting to assume a prone position behind several protective protrusions on the vehicle. He began firing his own rifle a second later, but was far more judicious with his shots as befit his status as a sharpshooter.

"Fire in the hole!" PO2 Wakulich exclaimed as he crouched in front of Fernandez and leveled his weapon. It looked like nothing more than a tube with a large rotary magazine directly in front of the trigger housing. With a series of rapid _thoop thoop thoop _sounds, Wakulich's weapon fired, sending a trio of high-explosive rounds tumbling through the air to detonate against the Reptilian defenses, collapsing one entirely and causing a second to explode in flames. A ragged cheer erupted from the Primates currently huddled behind whatever cover they could find, but the humans ignored it as they continued to pour energy into the Xindi-Reptilians.

Hicks was the first to fall. Despite reeling from the unexpected ferocity of the Roughneck assault, the Reptilians began to sporadically return fire and one of those poorly aimed shots sliced through Hicks' armor. He collapsed without a sound and T'Pol reacted without thinking. Grabbing him by the back of his cuirass, she dragged him into cover where the corpsman, Petty Officer Simons, went to work. Instinctively, T'Pol reached for the fallen Roughneck's rifle and took his place without hesitation.

"Pour it on!" Fernandez roared and the SEAL team answered with even more weapons fire. T'Pol focused exclusively upon the feel of the rifle in her hand, the way it recoiled when she squeezed the trigger, the smell of its power cell heating up. It was a tactic to disassociate her mind from the violence she was causing, the death that she was likely handing out.

With a sputtering cough, the grav-vehicle's engine growled to life. It trembled and shook as Trip did whatever it was that he was doing, before the repulsor fans began whining to life. Moore rolled off the side of the assault vehicle, landing in a crouch alongside where T'Pol knelt. An instant later, the personnel carrier rolled upright.

"Get in!" Trip shouted as he slid the grav-vehicle around so the open hatch he'd wiggled through was away from the Reptilian fire.

"Move!" Fernandez shouted, and the Roughnecks retreated backwards toward the vehicle, still firing. T'Pol followed suit but somehow found that she was the first to enter. "Target that breach in their defenses, sir," Fernandez said as she climbed into the armored personnel carrier. "Full throttle."

"Right down their goddamned throats," Wakulich muttered darkly as he reloaded his grenade launcher. He seemed to be staring at the unmoving body of Petty Officer Second Class Hicks, now stretched out on the floor of the grav-vehicle.

"Hold on!" Trip shouted as he fed power to the engine.

= /\ = = /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

"Hold on!" Lina shouted as she fed power to the engine.

_Endeavour's _impulse drive whined in protest, but she ignored it and focused instead on the tight spiral that would carry the Starfleet ship away from the volley of torpedoes launched by the dying Xindi-Reptilian command cruiser. A low buzz trembled through the deckplates as the point-defense systems vomited a torrent of defensive fire. Utilizing a combination of x-ray lasers and actual, physical slugs composed of carefully formed depleted uranium, the P-Def ravaged the ordinance, causing many to explode harmlessly dozens of kilometers away from _Endeavour_. An equal number of torps were damaged enough that their guidance computers failed or the motors driving the ordinance couldn't maintain the necessary speed or maneuverability. Of the twenty torpedoes fired, only six escaped the rain of steel and lasers to home in on _Endeavour._

Six was still far too many.

"Incoming!" Lieutenant Kornegay shrieked seconds before the torpedoes struck. Explosions rocked the ship, blowing out shield generators across all decks and causing_Endeavour _to tremble. Alarms howled as EPS junctions self-destructed, but Lina forced herself to ignore all distractions. _Focus on the objective, _she told herself. _Stay alive. Everyone is relying on you._

_You can do this, Lina, _a voice whispered from her past. She couldn't tell if it was Travis or Rashid or her dad – it wasn't really there, the logical part of her brain whispered, but Lina ignored it – but the voice gave her courage, washed away her fear, and made her … extraordinary.

Her fingers flew across the helm console in a blur, feathering malfunctioning maneuvering thrusters, goosing the already laboring impulse drive for just a little more thrust, and then, in her masterpiece, using the warp field itself to leech the velocity out of their uncontrolled tumble. _Endeavour_ twisted and spun and rolled, but climbed back into the fight. The phase cannons continued their unrelenting barrage, slicing into the Reptilian cruiser and burning through the superstructure.

"Tactical, I want a full torpedo barrage on that ship," Commander Eisler snapped from where he sat at Lina's back. He sounded angry, not terrified or worried, and she drew strength from it. "Helm, get in close, underneath their starboard weapons array."

Once again, Selina banked _Endeavour _hard, this time narrowly avoiding a nearly crippled Arboreal ship that sincerely looked like its entire hull was ablaze. The hollow echo of the torpedo tubes in action was unrelenting – Lieutenant Kimura's ruthless drilling of his team in the nine days it had taken them to reach this planet was paying off as it almost seemed that the torpedoes were being fired nonstop – and the brilliant explosions of frozen fire across the command cruiser's hull was paying dividends. Its lower quarters were glowing from internal fires and only one of the three drive exhaust nozzles was functioning.

But _still_, the damned thing was trying to fight on.

"Multiple hull breaches on D Deck!" Rostova exclaimed from the DCO station. "Shields have failed!"

"_Scheisse!" _Eisler snarled. "Kornegay! _Schnell!_"

"Engaging!"

Firing in rapid succession, all of _Endeavour's _phase cannons barked and every single one of the particle beams converged at virtually the same location on the Reptilian ship. Armored hull plates buckled and evaporated under the concentrated assault, and a second later, an immense explosion rocked the entire cruiser. Chunks of burning metal went spinning into the darkness as the section targeted abruptly blew outward. With the starboard quadrant of the ship completely exposed to vacuum, the cruiser shuddered. Secondary and tertiary explosions continued to rock the warship as the deuterium tanks ignited and tore the vessel apart.

"Damage report!" Eisler demanded.

"Emergency bulkheads have sealed on B Deck!" Rostova replied immediately. "Sickbay reporting numerous casualties incoming!"

"Sato!"

"Ground team pressing assault," Hoshi said instantly. Out of the corner of her eye, Lina could see the operations officer look up at their acting-captain. "One KIA."

"Send acknowledge," the commander ordered. "Helm, orient on the Romulan bird of prey, maximum impulse."

"Aye, sir," Lina replied.

"Tactical," Eisler continued even as Mayweather spoke, "fire as soon as we're in range. And Kornegay?" Despite the still shrieking alarms, the commander's voice was low.

"Sir?"

"I want it dead."

= /\ = = /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

He wanted them dead.

Ears ringing, D'deridex pushed himself to his feet and gave his surroundings a glance. The two **marines **that had accompanied him planetside were both dead thanks to the explosion that had destroyed the shuttle. When they had originally landed here, atop the observation gantry connected to the launching cradle that enclosed the Weapon and exposed only the upper half of it above ground, it had been simply because of location – from this point, one could simply walk to the nearest fueling arm and enter the weapon thus. Until now, D'deridex had only briefly considered how vulnerable the landing pad was to enemy fire. It was only sheer luck that saved his life and he bit back a furious curse. Rage coursed through his veins, churning inside his stomach and feeding his strength. The origin of the weapons-fire intended to claim his life was unmistakable.

Reptilian. They had betrayed him.

A low vibration rumbled through the ground and D'deridex recognized it immediately: the Xin'di was bringing the Weapon online. It was operational. So. They had lied about that as well. D'deridex swallowed another flash of fury.

_You will all perish in lakes of blood_, he promised as he rolled one of the marinesover and seized the disruptor rifle clenched in the corpse's fingers. A bitter, acrid stench filled his nostrils then – the tiny computer in the marine'sarmor had finally registered that its inhabitant was dead and had triggered the acid compound contained within the bodyglove worn under the warsuit. There would be nothing left of the **marine **in seconds.

And barely a second later, D'deridex realized that he should be incapable of smelling_anything _with his helmet on.

A flashing light appeared in his field of view as his suit alerted him of a critical breach. He cursed at the rapidly descending numbers that then flickered into view and began stripping off the warsuit as quickly as possible. The cuirass resisted his efforts at first but the growing heat against his bare skin gave him extra strength and he tore it free. Even as it hit the ground, he was working on the bodyglove – acid hissed and bubbled where it struck, but D'deridex ignored the pain, ignored the fear, ignored the sounds of combat drawing ever closer. All that mattered was that he get out of the suicide shell…

His still healing leg ached as he threw the last piece of the body glove aside and hugged his burned hand to his chest. The acid did its work well – the undergarment was gone in seconds, leaving only a foul stench and a puddle of unidentifiable goo in its wake. Grimacing, D'deridex knelt and quickly redonned his battlesuit, this time without the benefit of the insulated material underneath. It was simple logic on his part – going into battle naked was the province of savages, although with how the armor was already pinching his skin, he knew that he would wear the armor only as long as necessary.

The ground trembled – an explosion of some sort, and closer than he liked – so D'deridex hefted the marine's rifle and darted toward the Weapon, hugging cover and keeping an eye out for enemies. He had barely covered six steps when he heard the sound of an approaching flitter.

There were three Reptilians aboard the grav-vehicle and none of them even saw him before he began firing. The first of them – the driver – died instantly as the disruptor beam, dialed up to its highest setting, excited the atoms within his body and shattered the electromagnetic field that held him together. By the time his two cohorts realized that they were under attack, D'deridex had shifted aim and fired twice more.

It took him only seconds to familiarize himself with the controls of the flitter and he slewed it around aggressively, pointing its nose toward the slowly powering up Weapon. He would not be denied – this Weapon was _his_.

The engine roared and sprang forward.

= /\ = = /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

The APC sprang forward, its engine sputtering and misfiring, but somehow, someway still functioning.

Trip didn't bother pondering small miracles. Instead, he concentrated on the absolutely bizarre steering mechanism and the overriding need to get closer _now_. In the seconds after he'd managed to jury-rig the grav-vehicle into working, he'd noticed a subsonic vibration that was slowly gaining in intensity. He knew what that meant.

The Reptilians were powering up the Weapon.

Defensive fire continued to pepper the APC from the fortified bunkers surrounding the mammoth construction, slamming into its armor and knocking the whole thing sideways. For a single, terrifying moment, Trip completely lost control of the grav-vehicle – he was certain that he heard one of the Roughnecks snarl something in Spanish or maybe Italian – but he recovered and slewed the APC around once more. It fishtailed wildly, which had both advantages and disadvantages, and he fought the controls. This was worse than trying to drive a sports car on a hockey rink! Again, the engine moaned piteously in protest as he demanded more power, and with a barking cough, it leaped forward again.

They hit the breach in the prepared defenses long seconds later, and Trip felt his stomach drop down into his feet as the vehicle momentary went airborne. It landed _hard_and with a shower of sparks and metal as the maneuvering fans collapsed under the APC's weight. The engine's moan turned into a grinding squeal and then simply died.

"Go, go, go!" Fernandez shouted, and the SEALs obeyed without hesitation, kicking the hatch open and diving out. Llosa was the first one to hit the ground, the man-portable pulse cannon he carried roaring its distinctive cry. Hudson was immediately behind him – she dropped to one knee and opened up with her rifle – and together, the two created a secure pocket large enough for the rest of the team to clamber out in relative safety. Trip didn't see it, though.

His eyes were locked on the unmoving corpse in the back of the APC.

T'Pol must have sensed his sudden trepidation – who the _hell _was _he_, to be leading these soldiers? He was just a regular guy who happened to be good at building things! – because she subtly reached and touched his arm. He glanced up and could just make out her understanding eyes underneath the polarized visor she wore.

"Sir!" Fernandez hissed from where she was crouching just beyond the hatch. "We've got to move!" Trip nodded.

"Lead the way, Chief," he ordered as he jumped down to the ferrocrete. T'Pol was a half-step behind him. To his surprise, the SEAL team leader then pulled a thermite grenade from her belt. She armed it and tossed it into the APC where it rolled to a stop next to Hicks' body.

_"Hasta luego, mi amigo," _she then murmured as she pushed the hatch shut. "Get your ass moving, _sir_," Fernandez hissed when she caught Trip watching her.

From the smoking wreck, they assaulted forward, moving through the trench-like structure in a rapid, bounding pace with only half of them moving at any single time. Reptilian defenders were everywhere, some hunkered down behind cover, others simply crouching in the open, and they yielded territory grudgingly. Two more of the Roughnecks fell during the insane, chaotic assault – Hawkins and Wakulich – but the SEALs pressed forward aggressively, barely pausing long enough to secure the weapons of the fallen and leaving behind armed ordinance meant to immolate the bodies before resuming their attack.

"Where the hell are the Primates?" PO3 Llosa bellowed. He had discarded his pulse cannon the instant it ran dry and was now carrying both Wakulich's grenade launcher and Hawkins' EM-41. Trip gave him a sidelong glance from where he crouched in the shadow of what looked to be a non-operational industrial transporter.

And in that second, Llosa's head simply disintegrated.

Even as the petty officer's corpse was collapsing, Chao and Hudson were surging forward, their rifles, the former scooping up the grenade launcher and firing it at the latest Reptilian counterattack in a single, fluid motion. Simons and Fernandez followed, their rifles chattering nonstop. Before he realized what he was doing, Trip found himself at Llosa's side, kneeling to seize the fallen Roughneck's EM-41. T'Pol was at his side, her own rifle at the ready, and the sharpshooter, Petty Officer Moore, trailed the squad, his carefully placed shots ringing out loudly. Trip glanced back at the corpse only once, noticing instantly that Moore had already armed and rolled a grenade at the body.

Fire erupted behind them.

= /\ = = /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

Fire was everywhere.

Alarms shrieked incessantly and hollow booms echoed through the engineering deck, but Anna forced herself to ignore them as she struggled with the growing list of battle damage. With the shields still down and the close-in weapon system barely functional,_Endeavour's _hull plating was the Starfleet's vessel primary line of defense as the Reptilian defenders rallied. Hull breaches were being reported on all decks, with at least four in critical locations.

"Riggs!" Anna shouted as another alarm flashed on her screen. "Fire on B-Deck!" He nodded but continued to issue orders through his comm. For a second, Hess felt a wave of fury thunder through her – now was _not _the time for him to be ignoring her! – but it vanished the instant she recalled his previous assignment. An unexploded Xindi torpedo had penetrated the lower hull shortly after the shields first failed and was currently lodged somewhere on D-Deck, dangerously close to the antimatter storage pods. Three Roughnecks were already en route with one of her engineers to see what they could do about it and they were relying on Riggs to direct them around sealed bulkheads and dangerous locations.

Which left her with precious few options.

"Lewis, give me good news," she snapped into her headset the instant she had tapped the icon representing the closest damage controlman on B-Deck. He was little more than a crewman but had shown enough potential and drive that she'd spontaneously decided to give him his own team.

"It's bad!" Lewis shouted over the commline. "We've got ruptured EPS – Ling! Get back!" The line popped and crackled. "I need more bodies here!" Lewis exclaimed a long second later.

"There _are_ no more bodies," Anna retorted harshly. She fought the urge to abandon her post and storm to the turbolift to join Lewis – right now, though, she knew that she was where she had to be, controlling and directing the DC crews to where they were most needed. Phlox had once compared her job to that of a triage surgeon and she'd grimly had to agree. "I need you to get your ass in there and get that damned fire under control!"

"Aye, ma'am!" the crewman replied, his voice breaking. Anna was about to change the frequency – she needed to get Rostova back on the bridge after having pulled the junior lieutenant for an especially dangerous ruptured coolant line job – when the commline came alive once more. "You heard the ChEng!" Lewis roared, sounding twenty years older than he was and at least two meters taller. "Come on, you apes! You wanna live forever?"

"D-Deck secured," Riggs announced. "Hoffman is down, but alive." Anna blinked.

"Who the hell is Hoffman?" she demanded before recognition of the Roughneck dawned. "Right," she said, shaking the moment off. "Fire on B…"

_Endeavour _shook hard, knocking her to the deck in mid-sentence, and a new alert tone began shrieking, joining the others still sounding to create a cacophony of noise that lost all meaning. Anna scrambled to her feet and gave the sparking panel in front of her the briefest of looks before moving to Riggs'.

"B-Deck," he said grimly. "Rupture in the port tank." He looked up to meet her eyes. "Thirty seconds." Anna wanted to scream, wanted to look for another solution, but knew they had run out of time. Thirty seconds until the fire reached the deuterium tank and then …

"Vent it," she ordered without hesitation. She reached for the nearest comm-panel. "Stand by for emergency vent, B-Deck," she said harshly. Riggs finished tapping his commands and the screen changed to display twin boxes. He placed his hand in the left one, allowing Anna to follow suit in the other one. They spoke at the same time.

"Authorize: Riggs."

"Authorize: Hess."

On B-Deck, emergency bulkheads slammed down, sealing off the entire section, even as the emergency vents slid open. Thousands of liters of deuterium erupted from the tank, freezing almost instantly in the hard vacuum of space. Anna knew it had to be an amazing sight, but her attention was focused on the flashing lights indicating the locator beacons of Crewman Lewis and his team. They flickered.

And went dark.

= /\ = = /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

Her console was dark.

Cursing furiously in her native Japanese, Hoshi slammed her hand down on the unresponsive system and then slid out of her chair to wiggle under the console. She strained to reach the source of the problem – one of the numerous notes Lieutenant Devereux had left her was about a persistent design fault with this station when_Endeavour's _polarization system was badly stressed; according to Hoshi's predecessor, Engineering had never been able to replicate the feedback problem so they hadn't really believed that it existed – and a long moment later, felt a spark dance across her fingers. Grinding her teeth together, she contorted her arm into an even more unnatural position and pressed against the loose piece of electronics. It resisted for a second before finally seating in its proper place. Instantly, the comm panel lit back alive and Hoshi scrambled back into her chair.

On the main viewer, the entire screen was alive with sensor contacts, each bracketed by a digital outline identifying it as friendly or hostile, and far, far too many were Reptilian. Of the attacking Arboreal and Primate forces, barely a quarter of the original number remained, and all of them were damaged in some fashion. Both of the Arboreal destroyers were still in the fight and had accounted for dozens of Xindi-Reptilian warships, but from the look of them, neither of the warships would last much longer.

"Kornegay," Commander Eisler growled from the where he sat, but surprisingly, made no attempt to take over from the lieutenant manning the tactical board. Instead, he continued to use the sensor feed installed beside the captain's chair to pick out targets for both the weapons and the helm. The source of his ire – Lieutenant Kornegay – gave him a foul look.

"We can't get a lock on him!" she snapped before turning her eyes back to the board in front of her.

'Him' was the Romulan ship. They had been trying to destroy the bird of prey for the last ten minutes, but somehow, he stayed one step ahead of them. Twice in the last five minutes alone, the Romulan ship had dove through a Xindi-Reptilian formation when Kornegay managed a successful target lock and launched a salvo of torpedoes at him. He had even fired on a damaged Reptilian ship himself once and used the resulting explosion like countermeasures.

"Bridge to Hess," Eisler said abruptly. Hoshi risked a quick glance away from her board and noticed that the commander's expression was even bleaker than before.

"Hess." Anna sounded alternately furious and on the verge of tears. "Port deuterium tank vented," the engineer said darkly. "Rostova is taking over damage control teams on C-Deck."

"Acknowledged." Eisler grunted. "You just pulled the transporter crewman." Hoshi inhaled sharply as revised casualty reports from the Roughneck team crawled across her screen. Four dead already … Hoshi hated that she was relieved that neither Trip nor T'Pol were among those lost – it made her feel like she wasn't as good a person as she wanted to be. The dead were people too – they deserved to be grieved, didn't they?

"I need him – Goddammit, Riggs, get that fucking fire under control!" Hess severed the connection without bothering to ask permission, and in that instant, Sato could literally_feel _terror and worry roll off Eisler. She snapped her head around to look at him, certain that she'd find him on the very cusp of a panic attack.

But she didn't. If anything, he looked grimmer than before.

"Got you!" Kornegay snarled. _Endeavour _shuddered – it was a minute vibration, but Hoshi had become attuned to the sounds the starship made in the months since she'd been aboard – and a barrage of torpedoes shrieked through the darkness. The Romulan bird of prey twisted and rolled once more, curving around a damaged Reptilian warship and banking hard around another. Two of the six torpedoes smashed into the first Xindi ship, exploding with some force that it sent the craft into an uncontrolled tumble. Another of the torpedoes struck something that didn't show on the sensors – some piece of unseen detritus that the navigation deflectors would normally repel – and wobbled twice its motor simply sputtered and died. The remaining three torps clung to the bird of prey's aft as it dove toward another cluster of Reptilian ships, its disruptors barking. Engines bright, the Romulan momentarily vanished into the Xindi formation at the very instant_Endeavour's _torpedoes detonated. A brilliant flash momentarily dazzled the sensors and when it faded, the Romulan was gone.

"Ricker!" Commander Eisler turned his attention to the acting science officer. "Verify destruction!"

"I'm trying," the lieutenant commander said immediately. She shook her head. "There's too much interference … I'm reading debris but … I can't confirm."

"I got that sonuvabitch!" Kornegay insisted. Eisler gave her a sharp, quelling look, and once more, Hoshi realized that she could actually sense his frustration. It coiled around him like a living thing, fierce and angry and sad and resigned, all at once. He both hated and envied Kornegay for some reason Hoshi couldn't fathom, but none of his emotions seemed personal. If anything, he seemed … distant and muted.

"Presume he's using their holo-cloak," the commander ordered. "Maintain fields of fire," he added when she nodded. "We're still in this."

= /\ = = /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

They were still in the fight.

Rage beat time with her pulse, but Chief Petty Officer Maria Fernandez pushed it down and focused on the mission. Nearly five minutes had passed since Llosa fell and in that time, they had pressed the Reptilians hard. To her continuing surprise, both Captain Tucker and Commander T'Pol hadn't just kept up; they'd more than carried their weight. The first officer especially was frighteningly competent with the pulse rifle – she was consistently as good a shot as Moore and, if they hadn't just lost four of her troopers, she'd harass the sharpshooter about that – but the skipper was barely breathing hard and hadn't hesitated once when it mattered. Maria knew she shouldn't have been surprised, what with both officers being veterans from the first Expanse mission, but she was.

The loss of good soldiers was something she thought she'd been prepared for, but the reality was something else entirely. All four had been solid and dependable – Llosa had been the first to fully accept her into the Roughnecks when Commander Eisler pulled her from _Telemachus_, and she was usually grateful to Hawkins for convincing her to give that smartass armoury specialist back on _Endeavour _a chance – and she'd known that this mission was going to be a difficult one when she recruited them, but their deaths … no, she hadn't been ready for this at all. All that mattered now was finishing the op, destroying the Weapon and getting back to _Endeavour _with the captain and his first mate.

And when she did, she promised herself that she'd finally tell Antonio exactly what she felt.

A steady hum echoed around them, vibrating the very ferrocrete and making it difficult to keep their balance. On the bright side, it was loud enough to cover their approach, which had been lethal for several of the Reptilian defenders. According to the captain, it was the Weapon powering up, and T'Pol theorized that they had less than ten minutes before it launched. Which meant they were running out of time.

"Down!" Chao hissed from his position on point. He gestured rapidly for Moore to join him, and the sharpshooter darted forward without hesitation. At Maria's hand signal, Hudson and Simons went to a knee, the former automatically turning to cover their rear. T'Pol followed suit a moment later, with Tucker following her lead.

"Chief, we've got an open hatch into the Weapon about three hundred meters from this point," Moore announced over their comm-line. He was on his stomach, inching forward to get a better look with his specialized scope. "There's something wrong, though," he added.

"Elaborate," Maria demanded. She kept an eye on the captain – he'd shown a staggering lack of common sense a couple of times already and Commander Eisler had quietly briefed her before they arrived in-system on Tucker's heroic idiocy. Though he had no proof, the tactical officer had theorized it was due to Tucker's long history with Admiral Archer and the example the older man had set.

"There are twenty or thirty dead Reptilians up there," Moore said. His frown could be heard through the comm-line. "I think the Primates made it through here."

"T'Pol." Captain Tucker's voice was hard and, before Maria could speak, the first officer had sprinted forward to join Chao and Moore. She kept low, for which Fernandez was grateful, and seemed uninterested in exposing any part of her anatomy.

"Confirmed," the Vulcan announced. "I am detecting numerous Xindi-Primate life signs."

"Great," Chao muttered. "We do the heavy lifting, they get the glory."

"Move up," Maria ordered, "but stay alert."

Chao was the first to reach the landing leading up to the open hatch. At Fernandez's nod, he scrambled forward and scaled the ladder three rungs at a time. Moore was on overwatch, sweeping the kill zone with his scope for any sign of hostiles.

"Xindi!" he said as Chao reached the gantry that lead to the hatch. Maria's breath caught when she saw him freeze in place at the appearance of a figure in the hatch, but she relaxed fractionally when she recognized the woman. For reasons that hadn't quite made sense, Councilor Naara had insisted that she needed to accompany them on this op, but since her presence made the other Primates more likely to fight harder, they hadn't questioned her motives too deeply.

"Hi," Chao said, his greeting broadcast over the open comm channel. The response came instantly.

"Goodbye." Naara's arm came up as she backed into the Weapon. The distinctive flash of a weapon discharge accompanied Chao's slow-motion fall backwards off the gantry. He hit the ferrocrete three meters below with a sickening crunch.

Moore was already firing, but from the angry curses he was spewing, Maria knew that he hadn't hit anything. The hatch hissed as it sealed, leaving Naara and her Primates inside.

A moment later, the Weapon began to rise.

"The bitch betrayed us!" Simons roared. Maria looked instantly at T'Pol – the Vulcan was touching the side of her helmet and Fernandez could hear the first officer urgently trying to make contact with _Endeavour _– and then to the captain. Tucker was still and silent for a long eternity.

And then, without a word, he wheeled around and sprinted back the way they came. T'Pol didn't hesitate – she instantly threw herself after the captain – and Maria bit back a surprised yelp. She glanced briefly at the remaining three Roughnecks before shrugging and pursuing their commanding officer. Still cursing, Simons followed, with Hudson and Moore mere steps behind them.

Behind them, the Weapon continued to climb into the sky.

= /\ = = /\= =/\= =/\= =/\=

The Weapon was rising from the planetary surface.

His heart suddenly pounding hard in his chest, Rick Eisler gave his command display another quick look, knowing that he'd find the same thing. Their offensive capability was reduced to barely thirty percent and the hull plating was almost as ineffective. Under no circumstances would they be able to stop this monstrosity.

"Oh, God," Lieutenant Commander Sato murmured, her eyes wide with terror that Rick suspected was only half due to their present dire circumstances. She had lost contact with the entire ground team minutes earlier and when Sato had reported this fact, Eisler had noticed the tears in her eyes.

"Tactical," Rick said darkly, "lock onto the Weapon and fire as soon as it comes into range."

"Aye, sir." Kornegay sounded sick.

"Commander," Ricker said suddenly, a frown on her face, "I'm detecting dozens of shield generators on that thing." She inhaled sharply. "Energy spike!"

A lance of raw energy flashed down from the Weapon, stabbing into the surface of the planet. Massive fault lines appeared immediately and Rick gasped at the sheer destructive force he was witnessing as pressure built and built and …

The planet – Xindus Secundus – exploded.

"Brace for impact!" Mayweather shouted instants before the shockwave slammed into them. _Endeavour _rocked and Rick felt the gravity plating fail as the Starfleet vessel tumbled uncontrollably, still buffeted by debris and pure energy from the shattered world. More alarms began screaming.

"Damage report!" Rick shouted as he pulled himself back into the command chair. The gravity flickered on and off, which made it difficult to stay seated, but he persevered. Eislers always persevered.

"Brownouts all across the ship!" the crewman manning the damage control station exclaimed. "Impulse and warp are down!"

"I've got no weapons!" Kornegay declared at the same time. She slapped her console, as if that would bring the systems back online.

"Incoming message!" Sato announced abruptly. "Open channel, video and audio!" She manipulated something on her console and the viewscreen suddenly came alive.

Councilor Naara.

"To all hostile vessels," the Xindi-Primate said, her eyes bright with what must have been madness, "I have seized this Weapon in the name of those who have been slain by murderers who claim to call themselves Xindi." Naara smiled, a cruel and bloodless expression that held no trace of sanity. "Vengeance shall be meted out to those responsible for these deaths. As you have destroyed our world, so too shall we destroy yours."

The transmission abruptly ended, returning to the image of the Weapon and the spacescape now littered with broken ships and fragments of a dead world. Its internal superstructure continued to spin and swirl underneath the outer hull as the Weapon accelerated away from the ruins of Xindus Secundus. The emerald power emitters across the massive construction glowed brightly.

And then, with a flash, it sprang away at warp speed.

The End of **STAR TREK: _Endeavour: "Amaterasu"_**

The story is continued in **STAR TREK: _Endeavour: "Xolotl."_**


End file.
